King
by sweetannaholiday
Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school.  The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.
1. King

Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school. The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.

Rated M because of language and sexual content, nothing graphic, but not for young eyes.

Please read and review!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from the Harry Potter series.

JAMES

It was early on Saturday morning, too early for James to actually want to be having breakfast in the Great Hall. However, later in the day would be the first Quidditch match, and as the Gryffindor captain, James figured it would be best if he were at least awake. Quidditch had always been something that he had loved, since before he was even old enough to attend Hogwarts. There was only one other thing that James had the same trace of passion for, and she just walked through the large doors leading into the Great Hall.

In James' opinion, Lily was the most beautiful, intelligent and desirable woman in the universe. Everything from her long, firery red hair and smooth porcelain skin to her quick wit and amazing sense of humor. James would do anything to get her attention, even if it required him to make an ass out of himself and regardless of if it required him to make an ass out of someone else. However, she never seemed to look at James in the way that he had hoped for. It appeared that she found him to be immature and conceited and she wanted nothing to do with him. James could not understand why, his antics usually charmed girls, leaving him with plenty of friendly females to spare, but never the one that he wanted.

He watched her graceful and subtle footsteps that led her straight to the Ravenclaw table, despite the fact she was Gryffindor, like James. He knew why she was headed to the dining table before she got there. Andrew Maldhorn. James despised Andrew long before Lily had fallen in love with the Ravenclaw boy. The two boys had known each other since they were toddlers, and at no point did the two boys get along. Mostly it had to do with the clashing of two 'alpha' personalities, but James liked to explain it as Andrew was simply a jackass. The reason that Lily had chosen Andrew instead of him was beyond James. However, there she was, slipping in next to where Andrew was already seated, planting one sweet morning kiss on his lips. James couldn't tear his eyes away. He couldn't help himself from being captivated by her.

"Get over it," Sirius Black, James' best friend in the world had very little tolerance for James' obsession.

"You need to eat and focus. We're going to kill Hufflepuff during today's game. Tobes isn't going to know what hit him," Sirius had the amazing quality of being able to be 100 percent involved and attentive for anything that he wanted, no matter what time of the day or night it was. James knew that Sirius' tolerance for "Lily-nonsense" was extremely low, and that Sirius actively worked to get James attached to another girl.

"I know, I'm focused. I'm eating. Chill," James tried playing cool, but his friends knew the unfortunate path that his mind had run down.

"It's too early in the morning for you to already be killing yourself over her," Remus, the voice of reason in James' life, chimed in.

"It's too early to not be in bed. Can't I sit this one out?" James was starting to feel miserable from watching Lily stare at Andrew like he was the greatest man that ever lived.

"Are you insane? I'm about to take away your status as captain. Your aren't allowed to sit on that side of the table anymore, no more facing Ravenclaw for you," Sirius was already over James' moping.

"I just need a shower and once I'm dressed I'll be able to get pumped for this. Its gonna be an easy win anyway, Jack Tobes is a mess of a captain and preaches that its about having fun, not winning. He deserves to lose," James was started to sound like his self.

"Hells yeah!" Sirius was glad to see his friend resurfacing out of the "Lily-coma".

James was alone in his private room, one of the bonuses to being crowned, as Sirius referred to it, Head Boy. James was surprised when he received the letter over the summer with the news and the badge. However, he had the suspicion that it was probably a result from his slightly above average grades combined with his extraordinary powerful leadership skills, which also earned him his Quidditch captain status, along with the influence from the large amount of "donations" that his parents contributed to the school.

Unfortunately, this suspicion didn't escape the Head Girl either and the Head Girl was, in James' opinion, the biggest bonus to the title. Lily Evans had been appointed Head Girl, but unlike in James' case, everyone knew that Lily's perfect grades, attitude, extra curriculars and near perfect attendance had earned her the title.

James thought about possible 'encounters' he would hope for in the upcoming year between Lily and himself in their private common room. He was also focused on getting prepared for the game, so he blared some of the Twisted Broomsticks' newest music to get him pumped up while he threw his broom and equipment into his Quidditch bag.

There was a knock on the door._ 'Could it be her?'_ James knew that there was a very slim chance that Lily had decided to pay James a quick visit early on Saturday morning, but he still let himself hope. James ran his hand through his hair, giving it his trademark 'I don't care' look, just incase she was, in fact, on the other side of his door. However, when James opened his door, he found the realistic source to the knocking, Sirius had stopped by.

"I was not honestly expecting you to actually be getting ready, props," Sirius laughed as he walked past James and sat on the bed.

"Of course I'm getting ready, I've been waiting all summer for my first game as captain."

"Thats not the attitude you were giving off this morning," Sirius knew he had to whip his friend into shape, he just was not too sure how he was going to do it yet.

"Yeah, well it was early. Its a weekend for Merlin's sake, I think my first public act as Head Boy should be to get breakfast catered to all athletes on the morning on Quidditch games. Well, catering for all Gryffindor athletes at least," James proposed.

"You work on that," Sirius humored him, "I doubt that one is going to go through, but its definitely worth the shot. By the way, I love this song, we need see a Twisted Broomstick show over the Christmas holiday,"

"Agreed, Gerard Thatcher's voice gets me amped, I love it. But we have to head down to the pitch, I'm supposed to be there a little early now."

"Sure, I'm all ready. Mooney will be down there in a little, he had to run to the library or something or else he would have just come with me," Sirius explained.

"Alright, let's go," James ushered Sirius out of his room, "I wonder if Lily's coming to the game," he added.

"I doubt it, your fantasy girlfriend had her loyalties all screwed up," Sirius said referencing her blatant support for her Ravenclaw even though she was a Gryffindor, "Now stop thinking about her or I will hit you in the head."

LILY

Lily couldn't help herself from just staring at Andrew. He was the most perfect person she could have ever imagined herself with. She had just joined him at breakfast, and he was dominating the group conversation with a story about one of his classes from earlier in the week. Andrew was a very strong personality, so strong that Lily, someone who was naturally independent, felt weak when she was with him. Lily liked depending on him for his leadership and support, so she didn't mind being the recessive voice of the relationship while he dominated.

"I'm done, let's get out of here," Andrew turned to Lily, she had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she hadn't realized that his story was over.

"Alright, let's go," Lily quickly agreed. She wasn't actually finished quite yet, but she didn't want to disagree with him.

The two of them left with his arm around her. She loved how protected she felt when she was with him, he was her everything. They went back to her private room that came with her Head Girl achievement, they usually went back to her room for better privacy.

"You look so sexy this morning," Andrew whispered into her ear as soon as they were alone in her room. He began to put his hands on her. She always felt uncomfortable when he began to act like this. She had never been intimate with him, she had never been intimate with anyone for that matter, and after being in a relationship with him for five months, he wanted her to sleep with him. She did not really want to, she felt stupid admitting it to him, but she only wanted to ever be with one man. Lily did feel a really strong connection with Andrew though, and occasionally she thought that maybe he was the one, in which case, it wouldn't matter if she had sex with him now or later.

"Baby, please," she tried to shrug him off of her, she felt stupidly awkward. All she could do was stand there and feel somewhat violated by him, it made her stomach churn.

"No, Babe, c'mon. Why do you resist this? Don't you love me?" He started questioning her as he kissed her forehead.

"Of course, but I just don't know about doing this yet, I want it to be special," Lily explained for the millionth time.

"I'll make it special," he whispered into her ear, "candles, music, the works," he promised her.

"Maybe," Lily could feel herself melting inside from the combination of his kisses and rubbing.

"Not maybe, say yes," he pressured her.

"I... I... well," Lily stammered with her answer, she wanted to make him happy and please him, but was she actually ready?

"I guess so," she heard herself say. His face lit up, she regretted letting those word slip out, but it was too late.

"Baby, tonight. It'll be the best night of your life," he pulled her closer to him and kissed her more passionately. Lily loved this attention from him and the amount of love that he was showing her, but she did not know if she loved the cost that it came at.


	2. Heart Songs

Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school. The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.

Rated M because of language and sexual content, nothing graphic, but not for young eyes.

Please read and review!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from the Harry Potter series.

Author's Note: The character 'Rosie' that narrates the first section of this chapter is an original character of mine, all of her details will be revealed throughout her narration. Thanks for continuing to read! Also, there is sex in this chapter, you were warned.

Chapter Two

ROSIE

The brisk September air made Rosie glad that she had bothered to bundle up before heading down to the Quidditch stands. She was seated with her closest girl friends from Gryffindor, including an uncharacteristically present Lily Evans. Usually, Lily was prepared with an excuse for the girls as to why she was going to skip hanging out with them, but this time she was not reluctant to come out. Rosie had considered Lily her best friend since they were in their first year together, but since Lily began dating Andrew at the end of their sixth year, she had blown off Rosie at almost every chance she had.

This was one of the many reasons that Rosie disliked Andrew. She would never voice her negative opinion to Lily because she knew how much Lily liked him, but she wished that Lily would open her eyes and see the real person that Andrew was. Rosie disliked how controlling Andrew was over Lily's every move, but when Rosie brought it up to Lily, she said that it was just because he cares about her well being. On the rare occasion that Rosie was able to get a piece of Lily's attention, she was ecstatic to have her best friend back. The two girls were sitting with their group, which consisted strictly of seventh year Gryffindor girls. There were all together five girls, and for the past seven years, these girls had been bound by the hip to each other. Rosie loved her girls, and it was because of her closeness to them that she never found the time for a boy in her life, but since Lily was scarcely around, it left time for Rosie to wonder about what she could be missing out on.

It was refreshing to be with the whole group, Rosie had always been the most sentimental out of the group and all of the little details mattered to her. If Rosie had to name one girl as the loudest of the group, it would undoubtedly be Angelica, she was as wild as her blond hair, blue eyes and unseasonably tanned skin alluded to. Mary Lou was the flirty one, she new all the tips and tricks to catching a man's attention, she was always the "go-to" for boy advice and Julia was the cultured one, she was obsessed with anthropology, wizard and muggle focused. Rosie had always considered Lily the strong, independent one, but since her relationship with Andrew, Rosie would have to label Lily as the quiet sweetheart. Rosie loved her friends like they were sisters and she was scared to think of the reality of where they all might end up after graduation.

"I still can't believe Lily is actually sitting with us. I thought you forgot about us," Angelica was never afraid to say the things that others were holding back.

"Well, come on, I've had my hands full," Lily tried to defend herself.

"Just hands? Or mouth too?" Mary Lou's blatant reference to Lily going down on Andrew was not lost on the girls and it evoked giggles from the group, but Rosie noticed a strange look on Lily's face when she heard the sex reference. It was obvious to her that Mary Lou had touched a soft spot.

"I barely get to see you guys alone and your not even going to be nice to me?" Rosie could hear the teasing in Lily's voice and she knew that Lily was not completely affected by whatever it was that caused her to be put off by Mary Lou's joke.

"This doesn't count as alone, every Gryffindor and Hufflepuff is here and so are a few Ravenclaws, thats the majority of the school. You owe us a girls night where you're not even allowed to think about Andrew," Julia told Lily. Rosie knew how much the group was missing Lily, and how little they have all grown to like Andrew because he consumed every moment of her life.

"Yeah, why do you always have to do everything with his friends? He never comes to see us," Angelica was starting to put the screws to Lily, Rosie could recognize the conversation coming from afar. It was the same conversation the girls always had when they all finally got together again, it was the conversation where they all try to talk Lily out of being with Andrew because he doesn't respect her. Every time the conversation goes the same way, and Lily ends up telling them that they don't know everything about the relationship and so they can't judge, and once the conversation is over the girls are able to carry on just like normal.

"Please, just leave it alone, let's not fight about this today," Lily gave up much quicker than usual and Rosie was really starting to think that something was going on with her.

Just then, they could hear the game starting and they watched the players kicking up into the air. As the game finally began, Mary Lou leaned into the group and let out one last pre-game comment, "I hope we do win, I'd love a good hook up session with Black after the victory party." Rosie just had to shake her head, typical Mary Lou.

LILY

The game had just ended and Lily was wishing it hadn't, because it meant just one thing; she was going to have to have sex with Andrew. Lily could not name the exact reason why she was dreading sleeping with him for the first time, but she kept telling herself it was just nerves. Gryffindor had won the match and everyone was heading to the dorms to celebrate, except for Lily who was making her way to the Ravenclaw dorms to see Andrew.

When she got there, Andrew was waiting outside the entrance, "Hey, Babe," he greeted her.

"Hey," she kissed him hello.

"So, we're really doing this?" he questioned her, but she could tell by his tone that it wasn't really a question.

"Yeah," Lily did not know why she kept agreeing, maybe she was too scared to say no.

"Then let's go, I cleared out the room for us," he told her as he led her up to his bedroom.

There were a few candles lit on the bed side table and all the lights were off. Was this romance? Lily asked herself. She then wondered about how much experience Andrew had in the sex department, she realized that they had never talked about the subject of sex past the idea of 'whether or not they were going to do it'. Lily wanted to ask him, but she realized that it was probably not the right time. They moved onto his bed and he closed the curtains around them, charming them so that in the event that someone does walk in, they would not be able to hear anything.

"Your so sexy," he whispered in her ears, "take your shirt off for me," he continued to whisper in her ear while kissing her neck. She did as he said, and he started kissing her breasts. He took off his own shirt and returned to kissing Lily's mouth.

"Lay down," he told her, and so she did. He got on top of her, and kept kissing her, rotating between her mouth and her neck, then her neck and her breasts. She was not too sure what to do with herself, but she felt stupid just laying there, so she ran her hand through his hair and she could feel his smile against her skin. Then he slipped his hand under her skirt, Lily gasped in surprise, she hadn't expected him to be so forward so quickly. He slipped some of his fingers under her panties and began to play with her.

"You like that?" he whispered to her. She didn't like it, she felt uncomfortable because she wasn't ready.

"Huh? Do you?" he asked again.

"Yeah, I like that," she responded, even though she was very uneasy.

Then he rolled onto his back and turned his head to her, "Get down there," he ordered her. Lily rolled on top of him and then lowered herself so that her mouth was in the same region as his penis. She looked up at him, and he was looking down at her, waiting. She took his pants off because she knew that was what he wanted. With his own hand his picked himself up and put it in front of her mouth, "Come on," he instructed again. Lily had only gone down on him a few times, and she did not really know if she was doing it right, it made her nervous. She put it halfway in her mouth, and started to suck. She could feel him push himself deeper into her mouth, so she went down further. She went up and down sucking and licking until he lightly pulled her up by her hair, "Get on your back," he whispered. Then he got onto of her and took her bra off. He smiled down at her and started kissing her again.

"Lily, I'm going to do it. It might hurt or feel tight, tell me to go slower and I will," he whispered into her ear.

"Okay," his words comforted her, and she was reminded what a special night this was, her first time, their first time together.

She felt the tip of him in her, she couldn't believe how big he felt in her. She was scared that it was just going to hurt.

"Baby, slow, please," she looked into his eyes, she wanted to do this for him, but she was so scared.

"I've barely done anything," he whispered back. He pulled out a little, then pushed in a little further, he repeated this a few more times, "Does that feel okay, Baby? Can I go faster?"

"Yeah," she whispered, and then he was all the way inside of her. Lily didn't know what she was feeling, she could not tell if it hurt or if it felt good. He started going a little faster, he had his hands around her sides, helping him thrust himself into and out of her. Then he stopped and he pulled out, collapsing next to her.

"Wow," was all he said.

"So, we did it," Lily responded.

"Yeah," he turned to her and smiled, "That wasn't so bad was it?"

"No, it wasn't" she replied, then he rolled over onto her and started kissing her breasts again.

"What are you doing?" she asked him, she thought it was over.

"I can't just play?" he teased her.

Lily didn't feel any different, she thought the transition from virgin to not virgin would be a little more monumental. She couldn't believe she wasn't a virgin anymore, and it almost made her sad to think about it.

JAMES

James realized that Lily was not with her friends at the victory party, he knew that there was a very slim chance that she would come, but he still hoped that she would. He saw Sirius and Remus sitting with two of Lily's friends, Rosie and Mary Lou, and before he even got over there James knew that Sirius was trying to get one of them to 'go for a walk' with him. Sirius was notorious for hooking up with almost anyone, but James was not that far behind him.

As he approached, he could hear the girls laughing, undoubtedly at something stupid Sirius just said. It always amazed James at how girls could fall for all of Sirius' tricks, jokes and lines time and time again.

"Hey, guys," James said when he got to the group.

"Hey, James," Mary Lou was the first to respond. He always thought Mary Lou was a little sexy. He never pursued her because he knew that it would permanently slam the door to Lily shut. However, he still let his mind wander once and while when he was looking at her. Her hair was always a little messy, as if she just got done fooling around, but the rest of her was always put together. It also didn't hurt that she never left her room without a push up bra that made James want to put his face right into her chest. He knew that Sirius was focusing on her tonight.

Right after James started talking to them Sirius had to interject, "Look guys, all this noise is driving me crazy, I'm going to go for a walk. Mary Lou, do you wanna come?" James had heard Sirius use this line a million times, Mary Lou lit up when he singled her out and she agreed to come at once. 'Its almost too easy for him sometimes' James thought to himself. The rest of the conversation couldn't hold his attention, he was too busy thinking about Lily and what she decided to do instead of celebrate with her friends.


	3. How Sweet It Is

Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school. The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.

Rated M because of language and sexual content, nothing graphic, but not for young eyes.

Please read and review!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from the Harry Potter series.

Author's Note: I'm posting this chapter now because I'm going away for the weekend and I wont otherwise be able to write and post anything until either Tuesday or Wednesday, sorry if its too soon after the last chapter went up. Also, there is a little more "sexy" in this chapter, its rated 'M' for a reason. Thanks for continuing to read!

Chapter 3

LILY

Lily was not expecting so many people to already be awake and eating breakfast, she had been hoping to sneak in and out without being noticed, she hadn't taken a look at what her 'morning after' make-up looked like and she was starting feel a little self conscious. Lily quickly went to the far end of the Gryffindor table, where it was the most empty. She picked up a plate and realized that she hadn't thought about how she was going to get the food back. She started to debate whether or not to just steal a plate, _'Honestly, what are the chances that anyone will notice one less plate?'_ She was more concerned about getting caught with it, especially with being Head Girl, it would look really bad to be stealing from the school.

"I don't see you down here alone too much," a voice behind her startled her, she didn't realize that anyone was standing with her. She turned to look, it was Potter. She was thankful that even though she was now living in close quarters with him, she had avoided an excessive amount of run-ins with him.

"Well, I'm just going to be down here for two seconds, I was hoping to take breakfast to-go," she said to him and then turned away to focus on what to grab.

"You know, I like what your doing with your make-up. It shows the world that you don't care what anyone thinks," she could hear the smirk grow on his face as he teased her.

_'Great, I must look so stupid, how could I forget to look in a mirror?'_ Lily couldn't think of a witty response, she didn't even want to turn back and look at him.

"How about you leave me alone and not make fun of me first thing in the morning?" Lily replied while she started putting food on the plate.

"Awe, Lils, I'm just teasing," James was making his way around Lily, so that he was sitting backwards on the bench and able to look at her face. This was the last thing that she wanted.

"Please leave me alone," she finally finished packing up the plate and turned to leave, but, of course, James followed.

"I think it was very thoughtful of you to bring us breakfast back to our private common room, especially since you skipped out on the Gryffindor party."

"Excuse me?"

"No, I think its really nice for you to plan a private breakfast for us," James was now walking with her down the corridor.

"I didn't, this is for me and Andrew, your not invited," She was starting to be very annoyed with him. She didn't find this cute, she found it agitating.

"Andrew? He made you come down here alone? What a jerk," Lily knew that James didn't like Andrew and she understood that he was jealous, but she really just wanted him to shut up.

"Its a surprise, because I love him and I want him to show him by letting him wake up with breakfast in bed," Lily was shocked by her own words. Had she ever said out loud that she loved Andrew? She hoped that her facial expression didn't give any suggestion to James that she was affected by her own words.

"Well, then, I suggest that you might want to look in a mirror before he wakes up," James' tone was somewhat mean, but Lily just ignored him and walked away, he stopped following her after that.

She got to the Ravenclaw corridors, gave the password and hurried back into Andrew's bed. He stirred when she sat down, "Babe? Where did you go?" He was starting to wake up for the day.

"I got us breakfast," she gave him a quick kiss on the lips and offered him the plate. He sat up and moved over so she could come closer.

"Thanks, Babe. So, what do you think about a round two?"

"Oh," she hadn't thought that he would want sex again so soon, "Yeah, you mean right now?"

"Yes," he was laughing a little, "Didn't you like it?"

"I did, I just wasn't expecting it so soon," Lily was embarrassed that she hadn't really thought about having sex past the first initial time. She was a little worried about the box she may have opened on herself.

"Well, I'd really like it if we could do it again, preferably frequently," Andrew put his food down and moved his arms around Lily. She loved to be comforted by him, and it reminded her that she would do anything for him.

"Okay," she agreed, she told herself that this was just going to be something that she had to get used to.

SIRIUS

When Sirius woke up on Sunday morning, he was surprised to find James sleeping at the end of his bed. He didn't remember James coming back to his room the night before, 'Did he show up before or after I went to sleep? When did I go to sleep?' He was strangely wide awake for such an early hour, so he did the only thing he could think of. He started to kick James until he finally woke up.

"Prongs, are you up?"

"Stop kicking me, you're a pain in the ass," James murmured back.

"C'mon, its past lunch, get up already," Sirius knew that it could not be any later than 9 in the morning, but he was hoping that the initial feeling of shock would be enough to wake James up.

"What?" James shot straight up, "What day is it?" Sirius had to laugh, clearly James was under the impression that it was a school day and he had missed half of his classes.

"Relax, its barely even daytime yet, I just wanted you to wake up," Sirius decided to be truthful to his friend.

"You two are the most annoying people that I could have chosen to be friends with," Remus had just been woken up, and he was clearly not happy about it.

"Mooney! Good morning, old friend!" Sirius knew that he couldn't trick Remus into waking up as easily as he could trick James, so he went the route of excessive volume.

"Please. Just. Shush," was all Remus responded with as he sat up.

"Prongs, when did you get here last night?" Sirius remembered his initial question.

"I didn't, I came up here hours ago but you were sleeping and I couldn't help dozing off. Remus and I went to the kitchen after you decided to run off with Mary Lou last night for hours. Everyone was winding down and disappearing, and we were bored. How'd it go with her?" James explained.

Sirius took a minute to think about his night with Mary Lou. He took her into an empty classroom, he couldn't remember which, and they made out on a desk, she teased him a little and then suddenly Sirius remembered a deal that she made him. He felt a sudden flow of blood and swelling down below just from thinking about it.

They had been making out, and she was sitting on his lap, when her hands started to become extra friendly. Sirius was excited and surprised at this point, because he wasn't expecting her to go all the way with him. Then she pulled away from him and bit her lower lip, "Do you want this?" she said as she touched him through his pants. Sirius wanted to play it cool and act like it was no big deal, but he wanted it so bad and he knew that it showed on his face. Her blouse that barely covered her was unbuttoned and he had almost a full view of her plump breasts being held snug by her vixen red bra.

"Because I can give this to you, and I can give you something that you've never felt before," she was confident and her words was driving Sirius crazy. 'She knows what she's doing, I'm not letting her leave here untouched.' Sirius found himself thinking of all the ways he would do her, all the places and positions. It was as if she looked into his head and found all the things that turned him on. A confident, sexy, loose and experienced woman talking dirty to him. _'I've hit the jackpot.'_

"Then why don't you take you clothes off and get started?" he was hoping to get her moving along.

"Thats the problem, I have one condition," she whispered into his ear. His excitement level started to drop, _'They always have to be so difficult.'_

"What's your condition?" he smiled, humoring her, he knew that chances are was going to be something stupid like "keeping it a secret" or "not being greedy."

"I'll give you everything you've ever wanted, all you have to do is have Remus ask Julia to Hogsmeade and to the Winter Formal."

"What?" '_Is she serious? All of this to get her friend a date? Why does everything have to be so flipping planned and plotted?'_ Sirius loved pranking and plotting when it came to hanging with his friends, but all this caddy-dating-girl scheming was too much for him to really care about.

"You heard me."

"Fine. Do I have a time limit?" _'She's lucky she's so hot'_

"Well, the sooner it happens, the sooner you get rewarded," and then she hopped off his lap and slinked out of the classroom.

Sirius pulled himself out of his memory of the night before and back to his conversation with James and Remus.

"Oh yeah, last night. Um, Mooney, I have something to ask you," Sirius figured that there was no better time than the present to ask him.

"What?" Remus was a little confused and Sirius could see the curiosity written all over James' face.

"I need you to take Mary Lou's friend Julia to Hogsmeade and the Winter Formal," Sirius was shaking his head, he couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth, he felt like a fifteen year old girl.

"What?" this time the tone in Remus response was less confused and more similar to Sirius' feeling of ridiculousness towards the question.

"I know, its weird, but you have to do this for me,"

"Why? Did you lose a bet?" James decided to join the conversation

"In a way..."

"What is going on?" Remus knew there was more to the story than what Sirius was telling them.

"Look, Mary Lou promised me a special favor if you do this. Its like a trade, an eye for an eye," Sirius tried to throw a smile on to make Remus want to help him out.

"Do you even know what that expression means?" Remus was looking at his friend like he had completely lost his mind.

"Come on, when have I ever asked you for anything?"

"That better not be a real question," Remus was constantly doing favors for Sirius, usually to get him out of sticky situations. Although this time it appeared that this favor was to get Sirius into a sticky situation.

"Look, were you going to ask anyone else, anyways? Instead of going alone, just take this girl. Make Julia happy, make Mary Lou happy, make _me_ happy," Sirius was trying his best to play the 'voice of reason' card, but everyone knew that no one played that card better than Remus did.

"Well, I don't know. Maybe," Sirius could see that Remus was thinking about something, or was is someone? _'Is there someone that Remus did have in mind'_ Sirius realized that maybe there was another reason behind Remus' hesitation.

"Please, at least promise you'll legitimately think about it."

"Fine, I'll think about it, okay?"

"That's all I ask," Sirius was surprised by Remus' final decision. He wasn't expecting to get that much out of his friend, "Just, keep in mind, the sooner you do it, the sooner I get the favor, so..."

"Sirius, shut up."

ROSIE

All of the girls were slowly getting out of bed and waking up for the day, Rosie was feeling good, but that's because she got to spend some time with a certain someone the night before. For the longest time, she'd been hiding her crush from her friends. The problem with telling them anything, was that they like to get involved and Rosie was not sure if she wanted to pursue anything.

"So Mary Lou, you seemed to have gone missing last night. Anything to share?" Angelica was always excited to hear new gossip.

"Well, Sirius decided to give me quick tour of an old classroom, it was purely educational, I swear," she started to laugh, all of the girls laughed, they were all very familiar with what Mary Lou liked to fill her time with.

"How far did you go?" Angelica loved knowing more.

"Far enough, I just needed to get something accomplished, a seed planted, if you will," Lucy noticed the quick smile that Mary Lou threw over to Julia.

"Why are you being so secretive?" Angelica was not stupid or oblivious, she had seen Mary Lou's quick facial expression.

"I'm not. I just don't kiss and tell," Mary Lou often times would make the girls laugh by pretending to be an over dramatic goody good, and it worked every time.


	4. Friend of Mine

Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school. The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.

Rated M because of language and sexual content, nothing graphic, but not for young eyes.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from the Harry Potter series.

Author's Note: I can't believe how long its been since I've updated this. I really love this story and months ago when I began writing it, I created this whole plot line that I was so excited about and I can't believe how long I abandoned it for. So here is Chapter 4, Chapter 5 should be coming up soon because the second this gets uploaded, I'm going to work on it! Also, thanks to everyone who reads this and double thanks to everyone who reviewed and I'm so sorry I haven't updated in so long!

Chapter 4

JAMES

James was walking to class with his closest friends, Sirius, Remus and Peter. They were headed to an early afternoon Charms class, and none of the boys were particularly thrilled about it. James could think of about a hundred other things he would rather be doing but there was one plus to going to class; Lily would be there and her pain in the ass boyfriend wouldn't be. Usually, Andrew's presence did not slow down James' flirting, or attempt at flirting, with Lily, but it was just a little bit more fun for James when she couldn't just hide behind Andrew.

"So...has anyone spoken to Julia lately?" Sirius interrupted James' thoughts about Lily.

"Well, I haven't, Remus might have though," James laughed with his response.

"Are you guys serious? It hasn't even been a week, and I just said I would think about it," James could tell that Remus was not liking the pressure that Sirius was putting on him.

"I was just checking, maybe you want to lay the ground work" Sirius hinted, "after all, Hogsmeade isn't that far away.

"Groundwork? I thought it was just a date? I'm not jumping into a relationship with her," James was amused by his friends' bickering, and he knew that Sirius must have really wanted Mary Lou if he was so adamant about Remus asking out Julia. At that moment, something more important caught James' eye. Lily was walking alone to class, just a few feet ahead of him. He wanted to catch her before she found her friends.

"I have something to take care of," James interjected into his friends' conversation before he sped up his pace so that he could catch up to Lily.

"Sup," James casually bumped into her.

"What?" James could hear the low tolerance level in her voice, "You know what's up, we're going to class," she continued.

"Well, I was wondering if anything else was going on," James scrambled for another topic to bring up. Even though he liked her so much, he did not know a whole lot about her, and so it made it difficult to start up a conversation with her. The fact that she did not want a conversation in the first place also made it difficult.

"Look, Hogsmeade is coming up, let's go together I'll bet you that if you come with me, you'll see that I'm 100 times more fun than Andy," James knew that her answer was going to be 'no', but he always asked, just incase.

"His name is Andrew, and I will never go to Hogsmeade with you. I will never go anywhere with you," She put a little extra emphasis on the last part.

"Well, if you hadn't noticed, your going to class with me right now... so I don't think that I can believe that last statement," James wasn't sure if there was anything that he wouldn't say in order to make a conversation with Lily longer.

"You are the most frustrating person that I have ever met. I will not now, or ever, be with you. So please stop asking," then Lily turned into the classroom and quickly ran to sit with her friends, leaving James standing alone in the doorway.

"At least you said please, I appreciate your politeness," he shouted after her with a smirk. It was always easier if he laughed at the end of a conversation with Lily, otherwise the constant rejection would probably start to hurt.

REMUS

Remus was the first of his friends to finished the surprise in-class Charms essay, he turned in his paper and was leaving the classroom when he bumped into a fellow Gryffindor, Rosie.

"Sorry, you first," she whispered motioning to the door. Remus went through first and held the door open for her.

"Thank you," she whispered as she exited the classroom.

"You don't have to whisper anymore, we're not in class so they won't be disrupted," Remus teased, he saw her look down and blush while giggling. As far as Remus could recall, this was the first time that they were able to talk alone. He had always liked her, but he never had the chance to get to know her.

"So, what did you think of that essay?" It was really the only thing that he could think of that they would have in common to talk about.

"It was pretty easy, but I've read the material about a million times, so its somewhat engraved into my mind," he noticed that she kept looking down.

"Why do you read it so much?"

"Well, I go to the library a lot, mostly to do work, but sometimes to avoid the constant loudness of friends. Sometimes I don't have too much work to do, so I have to find a way to stay occupied while I'm down there."

"I understand, sometimes it gets tough to work with Sirius and James around," Remus was very familiar with friends inhibiting work getting done.

"You should try the library. No distraction there."

"I will, maybe I'll see you down there some time," Remus said, then Lily opened the door, followed by a few more students who had finished their work.

"Hey guys," Lily said to them.

"Hey," Rosie greeted Lily, Remus offered a smile.

"That wasn't too bad, its just terrible trying to write a perfect essay in a first draft," Lily starting talking about the assignment.

"I agree, but I don't think its going to be graded based on composition, just get as many facts as possible in there and you should be good," Remus never had a problem talking to Lily, she was easy, it was harder to talk to Rosie because he wasn't sure if her silence was shyness or because he offended her.

JULIA

Julia wasn't stupid, she had seen Rosie talking to Remus after class through the glass in the door. It wasn't fair that Rosie was going to walk right up to him and play the 'sweetheart' card and get him to like her. Julia already called dibs. Well, maybe she hadn't told all the girls, but Mary Lou was supposed to be taking care of it. She had to go public, that way Rosie wouldn't be able to develop anymore feelings for Remus.

"So, do you know who I am realizing is really cute?" Julia decided that it was best to tell all of her friends at the same time, and since it was rare that Lily was with them, she would have to do it at that second. They were all sitting together on a patch of grass outside of the castle, enjoying their short break in between class.

"Who?" Angela was the first to ask.

"Remus Lupin. He's got that smart and sexy thing. Don't you agree?" Julia pointed her question at Angela, since she had initiated the question asking, but Julia was watching Rosie, to see if she would give away any signs of liking Remus.

"I suppose, I'm not really into nerdy guys. I think Sirius is hotter, but Mary Lou has seemed to already captured him," Angela answered, Mary Lou laughed.

"What do you mean?" Mary Lou asked Angela.

"Please, he is always looking over at you, and its not a quick glance. His eyes linger, he's not just glancing," all of the girls had noticed Sirius' recent attentiveness to Mary Lou, and it was not as if she wasn't reciprocating. From time to time, Mary Lou would look over her shoulder at him, or bite her bottom lip while throwing him a glance. Julia knew why, she knew that Mary Lou was trying to keep Sirius fueled for the deal.

"Well, can you blame him?" was Mary Lou's response.

"Alright, well I have to meet up with Andrew before his class, I'll see you guys later," Lily said goodbye to the group then quickly made her way to the Ravenclaw common room.

Julie was unsatisfied with Rosie's lack of a response, but maybe it just meant that Rosie really did have no interest in him._ 'Good, nothing to worry about.'_ Julia told herself.

LILY

Andrew was waiting outside the common room for Lily by the time that she got there.

"Hey, babe," He greeted her with a kiss, "you wanna head to your room?"

They usually headed back to her room, because it was so private. But now, the privacy was actually needed. Lily was starting to regret her decision to sleep with him, she felt awkward doing it. It became apparent to Lily that she was going to have to be more proactive in making her sex life enjoyable. It was never going to get any better if she didn't truly engage herself in it and it was too late to stop sleeping with him. She mentally told herself to watch what became apparent that he liked. Maybe she should talk to Mary Lou for help. _'I'm going to give him the best surprise,'_ Lily decided. As they walked to her room, Lily began to mentally plan her surprise. She was going to wear her only sexy under garments, go to his room, and surprise him with the best sex that she was capable of.

"Uh, are you listening?" Andrew stopped walking and was giving Lily an annoyed look.

"I'm so sorry, I'm just distracted," she had been absorbed in her own thoughts and didn't realize that she had tuned him out.

This occurrence was becoming more and more common between the two of them. Andrew could talk forever about any topic, and along the way he would lose Lily's attention until he called her out on it. It was embarrassing to Lily, but honestly, he was usually rambling about something that in no universe pertained to her or telling a story that she had heard so many times, she could regurgitate it as if it were her own.

"Its fine," was all he responded.

She pecked a kiss on his cheek and looked at him with the most loving eyes that she could conjure up, and he smiled back at her.

"I can't wait until we get to your room," he whispered to her.

Later that night, after Andrew left, Lily stepped out of her room and went in search of Mary Lou. He stomach was in knots as she tried to decide whether she was going to only tell Mary Lou and ask for advice or if she should tell all of her girls. Especially Rosie. Rosie had always been Lily's best friend and Lily couldn't imagine telling anyone that she had lost her virginity before telling Rosie. At this moment, Lily needed quick advice on how to do it better, not a lecture on who she chose to do it with and she knew how disappointed Rosie would be with her.

Luckily for Lily, Mary Lou was walking alone down the corridor, it seemed her mind was made up for her.

"Mary Lou!" Lily shouted to her and continued walking towards her.

"Lils! What are doing?" Mary Lou was surprised to see Lily wandering around alone, usually Lily was held up in her room working on homework or tied to Andrew's arm.

"I was actually looking for you," Lily admitted.

"Oh, really?" Mary Lou became excited at the prospect of interesting news.

"Yeah, I kind of need some advice and you're the best girl I know for it," Lily could tell by Mary Lou's face that Mary Lou understood what type of advice Lily was looking for.

"Really!?" Mary Lou was shocked that Lily was finally having sex and that Lily would choose to share this information only with her.

"Yeah, I honestly don't know what I'm doing and sometimes its a little pathetic," Lily tried to explain her desperateness.

"How long has this been going on? I can't believe you didn't tell us!" Mary Lou couldn't quite get over her shock.

"Um, maybe a week or so," Lily honestly hadn't been keeping count of how many times they had done it, "look, I don't want anyone to know yet, so I'm just telling you. I really need your help. Girl to girl.

"Of course! I live for this stuff, Lily," Mary Lou was so happy to be including in the details of Lily's sex life.

"Wanna come back to my room?" Lily asked her, even though Mary Lou had already spun Lily around and starting walking back to the Head's dorms.

"I can't believe you think you even have to ask."

The girls spent the rest of the night giggling. Mary Lou very seriously gave Lily direct instructions on how to be the best lover she could be. Lily was a little surprised with herself, she never would have imagined herself keeping a secret like this from the rest of the group. Even if she thought she was going to keep a secret, she would have anticipated it being between her and Rosie, not her and Mary Lou.


	5. Run Away

Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school. The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.

Rated M because of language and sexual content, nothing graphic, but not for young eyes.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from the Harry Potter series.

Author's Note: Okay, so I admit, Chapter 5 came out very quickly after Chapter 4. I want to explain that I'm not just speeding through these chapters to get them done. I wrote a lot of little pieces of this story when I first started because I was feeling particularly inspired or emotional, so parts of this particular chapter were already written and it was a matter of putting it together. Thanks again for reading and please review I love seeing that someone other than me is enjoying this story! Or even if your not enjoying this, let me know you what you think.

ROSIE

Rosie spent every Tuesday night in the library, she loved structure and it became essential to the pattern of her week to go every Tuesday to organize her homework plan for the rest of the week and start getting some work done in silence. It was sometimes hard to focus in the common room or in her bedroom because she always had a friend around making some sort of distraction.

She was sitting with her Potions textbook open in front of her and her notebook open beside it. Rosie was always paranoid that she was going to misread the assigned potion if she had not prepared before class by studying it. Her main fear in ruining a potion was drawing attention to herself. She hated being a focus, especially if she was being focused on because of something embarrassing. Too much attention made Rosie nervous, she would become extremely aware of how she was holding herself, her hair would begin to feel strange on her head, she would become uncomfortable trying to figure out where she should be looking.

At this time, Rosie saw someone pull out the chair across from her at the table. She looked up in surprise, she had never been interrupted in the library before.

"Remus!" Rosie spoke a little louder than she meant to and received angry glares from a nearby student who had been pouring over a pile of textbooks since before she arrived.

"Hey, I thought I'd take your advice about the library," Remus whispered as he sat down across from her.

"Oh, yeah, I'm glad," she responded. She couldn't think of anything smart to say, _'My, my he's so cute,'_ she found herself thinking, she felt her cheeks blushing.

The student who had previously glared at Rosie was now loudly clearing his throat. Remus stifled a laugh, it was obvious the student was not going to tolerate chatter.

"I'm sorry," Rosie whispered to the student, she wasn't sure if he could even hear her because she spoke so quietly but she felt compelled to apologize anyways.

Remus pulled out a notebook and his Transfiguration textbook, Rosie glanced at his paper and saw that he was taking notes from the book and combining them with his class notes to start an outline for the essay that they had been assigned earlier in the day. She was extremely impressed with his work ethic and with the surprising neat handwriting that he had, in her experience it was a nightmare trying to read a teenage boy's handwriting.

An hour and a half later, after complete silence between the two, Rosie began to pack up her things. She had run out of tasks to work on and she was out of hope that he was going to start talking to her. However, when he noticed her packing up, he spoke,

"You're done?" he asked quietly, although the angry student had already left and they probably could have spoken at a more normal volume.

"Yeah, I think so," Rosie said. Remus sat back from the table and looked at his work.

"Me too, I can't look at this paper anymore," he chuckled.

"Oh, good, wanna walk back to the dormitory?" Rosie asked, she was surprised at her question, she was normally too quiet to ever ask what she wanted to.

"Yeah, let's go," Remus said to her as he packed the rest of his things back into his bag.

When Remus and Rosie had left the library, Remus starting talking again.

"So, how often do you hit up the library?"

"Oh, well, you know," Rosie couldn't immediately remember how frequently she was in the library.

"Pretty sporadic? he guessed for her.

"Um, no," Rosie laughed at herself, "I go Tuesdays,"

"Every Tuesday?"

"Yeah, I like structure," Rosie wanted to kick herself for sounding so lame.

"Oh, that's a pretty good idea," he replied. Rosie was elated by his compliment.

"Yeah, it really helps me get organized," she added.

They had now reached the Gryffindor dormitory.

"Yeah, the quiet was pretty helpful," Remus agreed, "So, same time next week?"

Rosie almost died of happiness right where she was standing. _'Same time next week? He wants to do this again? Oh, man._

"Um, definitely, I'll be in the library," Rosie responded before the two parted ways and she wandered up to the girl's dormitories, completely stunned.

JAMES

James was laying on Sirius' bed, he had a textbook open in front of him, but he had no idea which one. He had randomly selected one from his bag and opened it so that he felt like some work would maybe get done. In reality, he was fooling around with Sirius. Remus walked in and the two boys sat up, they had noticed him missing about an hour ago and they wondered together if he told them he was going somewhere.

"Hey, where were you?" James asked Remus

"Oh, getting some work done, I decided to head to the library for some quiet," Remus told them.

"Please tell me you've spoken to Julia," Sirius blurted out.

"Look, I haven't and I don't know if I'm going to-," Remus started explaining to Sirius but Sirius cut him off.

"What? Please, Mooney, I'm begging you," Sirius pleaded with Remus. James couldn't recall the last time Sirius was so desperate for a favor.

"Why? Won't it be weird if the only reason I ask her is because you made me?" Remus questioned.

"Well, you could have a little game and not make it so obvious," Sirius retorted. James held in a laugh while he mentally pictured Remus asking Julia to the formal by telling her that he had been forced to ask.

"Okay, I'm sorry, I'm just... not in the mood to talk about it," Remus said and he started walking towards his bed.

James could tell something was going on with Remus and Sirius constant questioning was beginning to get old. James wondered if something had happened between Remus and Julia that would prevent him from wanting to go to the formal with her. Julia was cute and would make an otherwise pretty good date, James couldn't figure out why Remus was so hesitant to ask.

Meanwhile, James started thinking about who he was going to ask. It was still early October, he had plenty of time. James knew it would probably boil down to whoever he was flirting with the heaviest two weeks before the dance. Although, he knew deep down that he wanted to go with Lily.

"Can't James take her?" Remus finally asked Sirius.

"Um, no. I don't think so. Mary Lou specifically asked for you," Sirius responded.

"And, I don't want to take her," James inserted, which was true. While James thought Julia was a good option as a date, he didn't think she was a good option for himself.

"Do you not like Julia?" Sirius asked the same question that James had been wondering.

"What?" Remus looked confused, "No, not at all. I just think this is weird. Does she know I'm supposed to ask her? It's kind of weird that its being constructed by so many people."

"Well, that's girls for you. And I'm not sure, but either way, this chick obviously likes you. Just take her, it'll make her happy and it will give you a guaranteed dance partner," James was surprised at home much sense Sirius was making. It was one of the most persuasive arguments that Sirius had ever made.

"Yeah, just do it for the girl, it doesn't really mean anything but she's going to get a ridiculous amount of joy out of it," James tried to help out Sirius.

"Okay, fine, just stop pestering me or I'm not going to do it," James could tell Remus just never wanted to hear about this again.

"If you haven't done this in a month, I'm going to have to start pestering you," Sirius warmed.

"I'm not used to you being so stern, Padfoot, this is strange," James was laughing at how seriously this whole topic was being taken.

LILY

Lily was in her room, she had put on her on her cutest pair of underwear and matching bra. She made a mental note to go shopping for better underwear when she had a chance. Staying up with Mary Lou the previous night had gotten Lily really excited. She was going to get to his room right before he would get back from class that evening and take charge of the situation. Mary Lou talked to her all about how important confidence would be if she wants him to look at her as sexy and not just cute. She was nervous of course, but excited. Mary Lou gave her detailed instructions to follow; how to be on top, how to give oral, and all the other stupid things that Lily had otherwise no knowledge about.

She snuck into his room about five minutes before he was expected back. It wasn't uncommon for her to be in the Ravenclaw dorms, so no one took much notice of her- even though she was not with Andrew. She knew that based on class schedules, Andrew would be back any minute and they would have about 45 minutes before any of the other Ravenclaw boys would be back in the room. This was the time slot that they had always utilized for alone time.

Then she heard the door open. "He's here!" She was excited, she had never done anything like this before. This new door had been opened for her, and she wanted to explore all possibilities. She was so happy that she had someone that loved her as much as Andrew did that she could have these new experiences with. She stayed hidden on the other side of the bed, where the curtain had been pulled halfway closed, but something felt weird. There was a lot of shuffling happening on the other side of the curtain. Lily was confused, so she peaked through the gap between the curtain and the wall to see what he was doing.

Lily couldn't believe the pain she felt in her chest. She couldn't inhale. She couldn't see straight. She couldn't comprehend. She just stood and stared, she couldn't believe the image in front of her. Andrew, her Andrew, and Adrienne. Adrienne was a seventh year Slytherin who openly made fun of Lily at any chance that she could due to Lily's muggle born status and her "goody-good" attitude. _'Adrienne? How?'_ Lily stood still, afraid that if she moved, the scene in front of her would suddenly become more real.

Andrew pressed his body against Adrienne's. He whispered into her ear and put his hand around her back. She began touching his chest, sliding her hand further down ever so slightly. He kissed her lips, he kissed her neck. Lily remembered the way he had whispered into her own ear and gently kissed her before the first time Lily finally gave herself to him. She was choking on her own tears. She was holding back from trembling onto the floor. She gave herself to this man. She trusted him. She was going to burst.

Adrienne laughed, and Lily could sense the change in the atmosphere. Through the gap in the curtain, Lily could see Adrienne slowly unbuttoning her shirt. She heard Andrew let out a breathe of pleasure. Before Lily knew it, Adrienne had pulled off his shirt, and was kissing down his chest. Adrienne kept kissing, all the way down, until she was on her knees. Lily couldn't watch. Inexperienced as she was, she knew what was about to happen.

Lily could hear the two as the made their way onto the bed. She imagined him crawling up her body, the way he had done to herself. She thought that she was going to pass out. She wouldn't let herself, if he found her there, she didn't know what he would do. Lily couldn't figure out what she was going to do. Was she going to have to wait until they were done, then sneak out? _'Yes, I can't deal with this, I have to wait. I'll tell him later,'_ Lily tried to reason with herself, _'But how humiliating, me standing here and doing nothing while he cheats, I'll be a joke,'_ Lily told herself. It was time for Lily to stand up for herself to Andrew. She always let him walk all over her, take advantage of her. She let her sadness turn into anger.

"I hate you!" were the only words that Lily could muster up.

She heard the movement stop.

"Lily?" Andrew asked quietly, Lily could tell that it was now Andrew that was having a hard time comprehending the situation.

Andrew drew back the curtain quickly, Lily couldn't tell if they noticed her flinch when she saw the sight of the two of them in bed, it was worse than she had pictured. Adrienne was just in her skimpy, black bra and panties while she was straddling Andrew who was now just in his boxers. It was obvious that they had been laying down, but Andrew had quickly sat up when he pulled back the curtain.

"How could you?" Lily could feel the tears coming back. She had loved him, she had given him every part of herself.

"Lily, what are you doing here?" Andrew almost seemed like he was mad that she was trespassing on his personal space. She couldn't bring herself to tell him about her surprise. She was humiliated, depressed and angry.

"I wanted to give you something," Lily explained.

"And so you hide in my room? What else did you do?" He was talking to her like she was some psycho that broke into his home and was stealing pieces of his hair for her collection, not like she had been his girlfriend for the past five months.

"I didn't do anything. Look at yourself! You are a liar, I hate you! How could you do this?" Lily wanted answers, she also just wanted to leave and never see him again, but she also just wanted this to all disappear and for him to take her into his arms and comfort her. He was everything she had, what was she supposed to do? Who was going to be there for her?

Adrienne looked smug. Lily wanted to hit her.

"Well, then, what were you going to give me?" Lily stared at him in disbelief, was he serious? She did the only thing that she could think of.

"I just wanted to give you this back," she said as she torn off the pearl ring that he had given her over the summer off her finger and threw at him. Lily then stormed out and the slam of the door behind her brought back the tears.


	6. All Time Lows

Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school. The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.

Rated M because of language and sexual content, nothing graphic, but not for young eyes.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from the Harry Potter series.

Chapter 6

LILY

Lily held her tears back for as long as she could, but unfortunately she knew there was no way she could hold back from bursting into tears before she would get to her room. Her insides felt like they were crumbling to pieces and every part of her body was aching. She hated herself for trusting him. She hated herself for feeling sadness when he did not follow her as she ran from his room.

She thought about how he didn't come after her, how he didn't even try to explain or apologize. These were the thoughts that broke her. She stopped walking, slid into a small alcove in the corridor and cried to herself. She felt like an idiot, but she couldn't control her emotions. She wanted her friends but she was too embarrassed to admit what had happened. They were right, after all, he was a jackass.

When Lily was finally able to compose herself, she finished her way back to her private room. As Lily collapsed onto her bed, she felt like she was going to die, Lily could never remember a time where she felt this miserable. Lily remembered every time she had ignored her friend's warnings about Andrew, even Potter had tried to warn her off of him. _'I would give anything to take back giving myself to him,' _Lily found herself thinking, and then the realization hit her, all she'd ever be able to do was regret doing it. Lily broke back down into tears.

By the time she woke up the next day, she had no idea what time it was. She looked to her window, it was bright but her vision was cloudy. Her eyes were sore and she felt her face. She could tell her eyes were puffy from just feeling her skin, she knew without looking that they would be red. As Lily sat up in her bed, all of her emotions flooded back to her. 'I'm not going to any classes today," Lily told herself, she felt like she deserved a day to herself.

The best that Lily could think to do was wash herself up, change into her softest pajamas and crawl back into bed. She contemplated which classes she was going to miss that day, but before she could accurately remember her schedule, she had stopped caring. All she knew was that she would not be able to stand seeing him. _'What if he is publicly with her?'_ Lily began to wonder but she quickly found that the idea of Andrew and Adrienne being affectionate in front of her peers and her friends made her want to throw up from shame and anxiety.

JAMES

James was sitting with Sirius, Remus and Peter at the Gyffindor table in the Great Hall. They had finished eating, but with ample time before their first morning class, so they were wasting time picking over their finished breakfast.

"I feel like we should be on break already," Sirius was complaining in his usual fashion that the school year was moving to slowly.

"How? We haven't done a single thing worth noting this entire year," James pointed out. It was true though, normally the boys had staged at least one large scale stunt amongst various small antics that kept the majority of the student body entertained.

"Gee, whose fault is that?" James knew that Sirius was just teasing, but there was some truth behind the joke. The only difference between their final year and all their previous years was that James was now Head Boy and felt a little guilty slacking off.

"Hey, now, its not just him," Remus jumped in defending his friend, "we're all at fault for being especially lazy this year."

"Then we need to plan something," Sirius was ready to do something stupid, fast. James could tell that his friend must have been dying of boredom. October was almost over and, with the exception of a few rowdy post-Quidditch game parties, the boys had participated in nothing.

"Like what?" Peter, the quietest of the boys, finally spoke up. The boys had all been close from the beginning, but James had noticed the slight absence of Peter more and more frequently. It was hard for James to imagine that Peter had something of importance to be doing, but his absences were never talked about or truly noted. The only reason James had even noticed was due to his surprise at hearing Peter's voice for the first time in a while.

Sirius had turned around in his seat, James knew that Sirius was taking a survey of which students were present in the Great Hall so early. James could practically hear the thought process go through Sirius' head. There were practically no Slytherins that had come down for breakfast, which narrowed the boy's selection in target. There were, however, a large presence of Hufflepuff females that would be worth impressing, and easily done. That left Ravenclaw, James looked and to his delight was every seventh year Quidditch player. _'Every seventh year Quidditch player,'_ James ran through his head, and yet something was wrong. _'Lily's not there,'_ he noticed almost immediately, she always accompanied Andrew at meals. James knew through an unhealthy obsession with what she was doing whenever she was in his presence that she practically lived to hang on Andrew's every word.

"Boys, I think its time for some good old fashioned team spirited rivalry," Sirius had a large smile on his face as he turned back to his friends.

"What are you thinking?" Remus asked him.

"Something stupid and unnecessary," Sirius responded as he looked around the table for a quick stroke of inspiration.

James found a sense of relief that Lily wouldn't be present to be at the receiving end of whatever he was about to do. He was also given hope that she would hear about what he did and might stop by to at least give him a good yelling at.

As James was focused on the possible conversation he and Lily might have later, he saw Sirius quickly turn toward the Ravenclaw table then back towards himself. He saw Remus shaking his head slowly but laughing with his face down towards the table.

"What? What did you do?" James was confused but not surprised by Sirius' spontaneity.

Before Sirius responded, James observed the Ravenclaw boys. One of them, Darren Klovasky, made a face of disgust and stood up from his chair. There were loud sounds of disgust as the boys covered their faces and began pushing their food away or getting out of their seats.

"Black! Potter!" Andrew Maldhorn angrily stood from his chair as he turned to the Gyffindor boys who had audibly and very visibly began laughing. It had appeared that Sirius had used a basic temporary aging spell to spoil rotten the food on the Ravenclaw table.

James noticed the boys wiping their eyes that had begun watering from the retched stench.

"Good morning, Maldhorn, can we help you?" Sirius sarcastically asked him through his laughter.

"What the Hell is your problem?" shouted Darren at the boys, but before they could think of anything witty to respond with, Professor McGonagall was behind the Gyffindor boys, furious.

"That would be my question as well," Professor McGonagall said, pointedly to Sirius.

"It was just friendly banter..." Sirius gave her his best smile as the group of Ravenclaw boys began to oppose his statement in a mixed incoherent outburst of protest.

"Boys!" Professor McGonagall shouted for them all to stop talking, "Honestly how any of you can proudly conduct yourself in such a way at your ages is baffling. 50 points from Gyffindor for unruly conduct, I expected more from you, Potter, is this how you represent your position? The same goes for you Mr. Lupin."

James had his back to his professor, as he was sitting across from Sirius, which gave him enough freedom to send his best mate a glare when he was specifically reprimanded by McGonagall.

"Filch, please start disposing of this mess," Professor McGonagall instructed to the school's caretaker who was already preparing to remove the food.

"Mission accomplished," Sirius stated proudly to his boys as Professor McGonagall walked away, earning him an eye roll from Remus and a chuckle from James as he glanced back over at the fuming Ravenclaws.

MARY LOU

Mary Lou was sitting between Angelica and Julia, with Rosie on the far side of Angelica, during their first class of the morning. She was unable to focus on taking notes and listening because of the soft, constant chatter and giggles happening around the classroom.

"What's going on?" Julia whispered to Mary Lou

"I don't know, but something had to of happened" Mary Lou said in reference to the unusual amount of chatter and squirming happening around the classroom. Mary Lou turned to look at Sirius, who was bound to be in on the information, he was, unfortunately, four rows behind her and she was unable to get his attention.

"I think there was a problem this morning in the Great Hall," Angelica informed the girls.

"Oh," Julia was disinterested by what seemed like was going to be a boring story and wanted to go back to listening to the lecture.

"What happened?" Mary Lou, on the other hand, wanted to know everything, as she usually does.

"I'm not sure, I'm pretty sure it was something that Sirius, James and Remus did. I've only over heard small pieces," Angelica whispered to her friends.

"Oh, really?" Mary Lou responded, she hated being left in the dark, but her choice to sit towards the front of the class made it impossible for her to find out what happened. Julia was interested again once she heard Remus' name.

"Yeah, I think they were fooling around with some Ravenclaws," Angelica continued to whisper, as they were only in the third row from the front.

"Andrew?" Mary Lou asked, immediately wondering if Lily was there and maybe that was the cause for her absence.

"I don't know. Maybe. Lily's not here. Maybe she's mad at James," Angelica was going through the same thought process as Mary Lou.

"Class needs to over, I'm too curious. Lily never misses class," Mary Lou was so impatient that had she not been surrounded by her girlfriends that would object, she would have gotten up and left the classroom to go find Lily to find out.

"You think Lily's okay?" Rosie jumped into the conversation once she heard Lily being mentioned. Mary Lou knew that school drama was never a conversation that Rosie jumped into.

"We don't know, its strange for her to miss class and apparently those boys did something stupid," Angelica turned close to Rosie to tell her while motioning her head to the back of the room where James, Remus and Sirius were seated.

"Maybe we should stop by her room after class," Rosie proposed.

"Agreed, she might be upset," Angelica added while nodding her head.

ROSIE

Rosie was curious to see Lily and make sure everything was all right. However, it did not escape her that it was Friday morning and she was only a few days away from studying with Remus in the library. Well, it was more like studying with Remus nearby, but she was still excited. Generally, boys were distracted by all of her girlfriends who Rosie supposed were more desirable than herself, and she was not used to specific attention from a boy. Especially from a boy that she had a long-term suppressed crush on.

However, she was drawn out of her day dream about the following evening by her friends' chatter about all the possibilities that Lily could have encountered as they traveled down the hall in a group towards Lily's private Head Dormitory.

"Maybe she's just sick," Julia pointed out to her friends who were beginning to get crazy with their assumptions.

"Lily never misses class. If she's sick she always tries to go unless we make her stay in bed. Remember last year when she had that fever and couldn't walk without blacking out? She still wanted to go to class because she thought if she just sat very still, she would be fine. I doubt this is illness induced," Angelica pointed out.

"I wonder if everything is all right with her parents. Maybe she got bad news," Rosie started participating in the speculation.

When they girls came to the Heads' Dormitory, Rosie gave the password, as they had visited Lily many times already and knew how to get in and out on their own, and the girls wandered in.

Angelica was the first to start knocking on Lily's bedroom door. Rosie noticed that her banging was rather aggressive, as if Lily might be passed out on the floor or dying and might not be able to hear them.

It was a long time before the girls heard any noise from the other side of the door, but then the unmistakable sound of sheets being shuffled could be heard followed by light footsteps coming towards the door. When Lily opened the doors, Rosie could tell that she was surprised to see all of the girls waiting on the other side.

"Oh, hey," Lily looked terrible. Her eyes were completely swollen and red, the end of her nose was red and her cheeks were drained of all their color.

"Honey, what happened!?" Mary Lou was the first to speak. Lily was never known to hang around in pajamas in the middle of the day with her hair undone.

"Oh, I don't even know how to explain," Lily told them as she moved aside so that they could come in. The girls all got comfortable on Lily's bed and waited for her to fill them in on what was going on.

"Are you hurt? I don't understand whats wrong," Julia tried to prompt her friend into explaining her story.

"I'm so embarrassed, I don't want to say it," Lily looked down into her lap and began tracing the pattern on her pajama bottoms.

"Lils, we're not going to judge you. We just want to be here for you," Rosie reminded her.

"I know, its just, its Andrew," Lily started to explain, Rosie noticed Angelica roll her eyes and Julia shake her head, it was no wonder to Rosie why Lily didn't want to tell them. Rosie knew that the girls had never been quiet about their dislike of him, but she didn't mean to allow that dislike to push Lily away.

"He's an ass, we told you," Angelica started but Rosie glared at her to get her to stop.

"Lily, I'm sorry we've been harsh about him, you can talk to us, at least let us know what's going on," Rosie was annoyed at her friends being insensitive to how hard this was for Lily to talk about.

"Well, basically, we broke up," was all Lily said.

"Finally," Julia let out.

"What? Are you serious?" Mary Lou appeared more shocked than Rosie would have expected.

"What happened? Did he do something?" Rosie was stunned, they didn't appear to be having problems, but of course Lily wouldn't repeat any negative news back to the girls.

"Kinda," Lily looked away from the girls.

"I'm going to kill him," Mary Lou was shaking her head and Rosie could tell she was getting angry.

"What did he do?" Angelica pressed.

"Well, he wasn't exactly being loyal," Lily continued to avoid eye contact with any of her friends.

"Oh, Lily! I'm so sorry. I had no idea," Rosie felt terrible for her friend, a disloyal boyfriend was not something that Rosie had ever had to deal with, but she could imagine how painful that breaking of trust could be.

"Wait, what? With who?" Mary Lou was starting to look furious. While she may allow her public persona to imply that she was a sort of a flake who likes to sleep around, she was extremely loyal to her friends and didn't allow anyone to mess with them.

"Adrienne, that 7th year Slytherin," Lily looked like she was going to break down into tears, Rosie leaned over and gave Lily a hug.

"I'm so sorry, hun," Rosie whispered to hear and she held her tighter, "just think, you're done with him and now you can have someone who will treat you the way you deserve."

"I thought he was treating me well," a few tears were beginning to fall down Lily's face, "how am I supposed to know if I'm being treated well now? I'll never know, because he'd just hide it."

"No, if you're with a real man who loves you, he'd never hurt you like this. You didn't know Andrew very well when you started dating him, so of course you thought he was a good person, you only knew what he told you," it was strange for Rosie to see such a maternal side of Mary Lou.

"At least you weren't sleeping with him too, that would be worse. Because then he would just be cheating on you for the sake of it, not because he had to for sex," Julia piped in, but then Lily burst into uncontrollable tears.

"What? I'm sorry, I didn't know that would make things worse," Julia looked horrified that she made Lily cry that hard.

"I-I-" Lily tried to speak through her sobs, "I- I- did."

Rosie felt her jaw drop. '_She did? Lily was having sex and didn't tell her?'_ They had always told each other everything, _'Why would she keep this a secret?'_

"Since when?" Rosie asked her, but she could hear the sweetness had left her tone.

"Not long, two weeks maybe."

"How long has he been sleeping with her?" Angelica was brave enough to ask.

"I have no idea. I haven't spoken to him since I found out."

"He hasn't tried to get a hold of you?" Rosie asked.

"He better not, I'm going to break every bone in his body," Angelica was now sharing in Mary Lou's anger.

"I'm going to break every bone in Adrienne's body. That stupid slut," Mary Lou added.

Author's Notes: I almost regret adding Angelica's character into the plot, I wrote her into the second chapter and while I'm tempted to have her participate in a freak accident that removes her from the story, I'm not going to take the easy way out. I realize that there may be too many o/c (Lily's friends) for readers to keep straight, especially because I feel like you don't get to see enough of them to really develop the characters in your mind. I apologize if any of you read this chapter and thought to yourself "Who the heck is Angelica?" because she hasn't done anything since her introduction and is not very memorable at this point.

UPCOMING! Much more Lily and James sequences, I promise! Plus the school is getting ready for the Winter Formal.

Please Review!


	7. Thistles and Weeds

Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school. The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.

Rated M because of language and sexual content, nothing graphic, but not for young eyes.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from the Harry Potter series.

Chapter 7

JAMES

James was down in the Quidditch pitch with the rest of the team, their game against Ravenclaw was about to begin and the Gyffindor team was ready to go. They were waiting on the rest of the Ravenclaws to file onto the field and get into position. There was an overall feeling of dismay as word traveled around the Gyffindor team that Sirius and James had provoked the Ravenclaw boys into anger, causing the Gyffindor players too have a higher guard up for extra aggressive playing.

James, however, was not concerned about this game. He had never had a problem with confidence and, if anything, the Ravenclaw boys would let their anger get the better of them and demonstrate some sloppy playing.

Both teams were called to attention to assume their positions on the field and ready themselves to kick off into the air. James noticed Andrew sending him an uncomfortable glare that made James rethink his confidence and he realized that he might be in for a major injury.

They were not far into the game when Ravenclaw scored 10 points for getting the Quaffle into the goal. It was only a few short moments before Zachary Boparti passed the Quaffle to James, as Zachary was to distracted dodging a Bludger to get the Quaffle any further towards the goal posts. There was a loud cheer from the Gyffindors in the stadium when James scored 10 points, tying up the game. Almost immediately after James scored, he noticed a Bludger flying extremely fast towards himself, though he was able to dodge it. He looked to see who would try to hit him after he was out of possession of the Quaffle, and he saw a very annoyed Darren Klovasky. 'I see he has not forgiven me for spoiling his breakfast,' James reasoned that maybe he deserved some of the anger Darren was showing.

James also noticed that moments later, a Bludger hit the front of Darren's broom, knocking him around in a full circle and causing him to lose balance, almost falling off his broom. James didn't have to look to know that Sirius had hit the Bludger in retaliation for Darren trying to hit James. James quickly threw his friend a smirk, who was already smirking back at him, but before the boys could focus back on the game, they heard the cheering erupt from the Ravenclaws. It appeared the Ravenclaw team had taken the lead back with another goal. It was frustrating to James that Gyffindor's comeback was so short lived, but what happened next was even worse. James heard the whistle blow. James felt his heart sink into his stomach as he heard the blow of the whistle signifying the end of the game. Ravenclaw had caught the snitch. Sirius flew over to James with a look of frustrated disappointment on his face.

"Damn, that didn't last long," Sirius said to him.

"This is just embarrassing," James responded.

"Maybe you boys should practice more instead of wasting time behaving like children," Andrew Maldorn shouted to the boys and he and Darren Klovasky flew by.

Neither of the boys had a response as Andrew and Darren boastfully returned to the ground, getting ready to celebrate their victory over Gyffindor.

James and Sirius reluctantly followed the boys back to the ground, where the Gyffindor team was making their way off the pitch and the Ravenclaws were shouting and cheering, already beginning their celebration.

James threw Andrew a last glance before dragging his feet off the field, but something strange held James' glance for longer than he had intended. As Andrew's feet touched the ground, his arms were open to embrace the pretty girl running into his arms and looking up to kiss his face. However, this pretty girl was not who James was expecting. With long dark hair, blue eyes and heavy, dark makeup was a fellow seventh year whose name was temporarily escaping James.

"Pads!" James shouted ahead to Sirius who had not noticed that James had stopped walking.

"What?" Sirius asked turning around.

"Uh, did I miss something?" James asked while he nodded his head towards Andrew.

James could see the surprise in Sirius' face as he realized what James was referring to.

"Mate, I have no idea," Sirius tore his eyes away from the strange couple and looked back to James, "but on the bright side, this might change things for you," Sirius threw in with a devilish smile.

James nodding his head, smiling at the newly freed up space in Lily's life, suddenly he wasn't so upset at his loss to Ravenclaw.

LILY

Lily was sitting with her girls in the Gyffindor common room. It had been a while since she had been in the common room, but everything was exactly how she had remembered it. She, Rosie and Mary Lou were lounging together on one sofa while Angelica and Julia were settled into an oversized arm chair. The girls didn't discuss going to the game that morning due to the recent events between Lily and Andrew.

Lily wasn't sure how she was going to react the next time that she saw Andrew. She was upset and more hurt than she had ever been before in her life, but she didn't want him back anymore. She was filling the figurative holes in her life with her girlfriends who would always be there for her. However, Lily knew she was not going to handle it well when she saw Andrew being affectionate with another girl, especially if that girl was Adrienne.

"Have you guys made your plans for the Christmas break yet?" Lily knew she was out of the loop on just about every topic that the girls would have discussed from the present time since the beginning of the year.

"I can't believe we forgot to mention it!" Mary Lou, would had previously been reclining against the arm of the couch, sat up.

"Oh, yeah, this break is going to be so much fun," Julia added.

"What's going on?" Lily laughed.

"My mum is going to spend the holidays with her new boyfriend, and she's leaving me with the house! You're all invited, we're going to have a Christmas blow out," Mary Lou explained.

Mary Lou had never been close with either of her parents. Lily could remember in second year when Mary Lou was excited by the news that she was finally going to meet her father over summer break as her parents had finally gotten together as a real couple. When Mary Lou returned at the end of the summer, she had nothing to say about her father and resentment towards her mother. It appeared that her father was as careless a man as her mother had always made him sound and her mother was too selfish to try to make the relationship work, even if it was just for the sake of Mary Lou's chance to have a real family. Lily knew that Mary Lou never forgave her mother for the lack of guidance and stability that Mary Lou was given as a child. It did sound that at this point, that Mary Lou had finally gotten over her want for a family like everyone else and she embraced the life she had.

"It'll be our last school vacation," Rosie was beginning to get sentimental.

"I'll definitely be there. I have to talk to my mum, Petunia and her new husband might be coming to Christmas, in which case I wont want to be there anyway. They are such dreadful people," Lily told the girls.

"Perfect, this is going to be so much fun," Angelica shared in her friends' excitement. The girls looked up at what was the first wave of Gyffindors to return from the game.

Lily didn't have to ask to know that they had lost, the glum faces gave away the final score, and their early return only added to the story. It was a very quick victory on Ravenclaw's behalf. Most of the Gyffindors returned to their room, some of the them settled in the common room and the light chatter that usually encompassed the common room began.

"Oh boys, boys, boys," Mary Lou whispered into the group, Lily looked up to see what Mary Lou was referring to. Much to Lily's dismay, Sirius, James, Remus and Peter were headed to where the girls were seated.

"Hello ladies," Sirius greeted them as he slumped onto the couch that faced where Lily, Mary Lou and Rosie were seated.

"Sirius, how nice of you to join us," Mary Lou gave him her best smile.

"We missed you at the game. What's wrong Lily, not giving Maldhorn the same support that you used to?" James asked her.

"Oh yeah, how did that game go? You're back pretty early and I don't see much celebration happening," Lily was not in the mood to discuss her relationship with anyone outside of her immediate friends, especially not Potter.

"Oh, I see Maldhorn isn't keeping you filled in anymore," Lily was almost hurt by James' constant reference to Andrew. She wondered if he knew what happened between them. Was he using the details of the Quidditch game as a double meaning for Andrew keeping Adrienne from her? _'No, James isn't that clever. He's just being an ass for the sake of it. Like usual.'_

"No, he's not," was all Lily could muster.

"That's a shame, I'm sure he missed you on the field," James kept going, but Lily couldn't take it anymore. She felt her stomach lock up, her sadness about the end of her relationship was mixing with her anger towards Potter's banter. _'Potter will not make me cry,'_ Lily told herself.

"We're not together anymore, if you must know," Lily couldn't keep the anger out of her voice when she finally responded.

"Not that its any of your business," Angelica stepped in for Lily, obviously seeing Lily's distress.

"Oh, we're just asking. Besides, its not like its top secret information," Sirius stepped into the conversation.

"Excuse me?" Mary Lou was caught off guard. Lily was as well, she replayed Sirius' words in her head. This meant that Andrew was being openly single for the school to see, or he was telling people about what happened. _'Regardless,'_ Lily told herself,_ 'he has no shame for what he did.'_

"I have to go. I have homework and I need to do it," Lily knew her excuse was lame, but she couldn't sit through a conversation like this. She stood up and quickly began to leave the common room.

"Lily, wait!" she heard Rosie calling her and she stopped walking to turn around. Rosie was already standing up.

"I forgot my sweater in your room, I'll come with you," Lily knew that Rosie did not leave a sweater, but she was thankful for her friend following her out. When Rosie caught up to Lily she squeezed her hand and smiled.

"This is all going to blow over and no one is going to remember anything, its still so early in the year," Rosie whispered to her friend as they left the common room and headed to Lily's room. Lily was so grateful for Rosie being in her life.

REMUS

Remus followed behind with Peter as James and Sirius moped on their way back to the common room. It had been a particularly bad game. Gyffindor scored once in the time that Ravenclaw had scored and caught the snitch. Immediately after the game, instead of crying over his loss, James had reported that he and Sirius had seen Andrew Maldhorn sharing a post-game kiss with a girl who, from their description of her, he figured to be Adrienne Parkinson. Normally, Remus would not care about any information regarding these two people, however, James was borderline obsessed with Lily and this news would mean that Lily was either newly single or about to single. Still, Remus didn't care much, but for the sake of James, he pretended to have interest.

"Oh perfect," James muttered as they walked into the common room. Remus saw what James and Sirius were already headed to, Lily and her friends were all gathered together in the common room.

Remus didn't want to see the girls for multiple reasons. The first being that he knew James was going to very quickly insult Lily while trying to determine if she and Andrew had broken up. The second reason was that he was dreading the fact that this could open up an opportunity for him to finally ask Julie to the Winter Formal, something that Sirius had been bugging him about for what seemed like ages. The third was slightly harder for Remus to determine, he didn't want Rosie to witness him standing next to James while he was being a jerk to Lily. He knew that Rosie and Lily were close and he didn't want his association with James doing something stupid to damage her opinion of him. He wasn't quite sure why it bothered him so much. _'I suppose I like her,'_ he told himself _'but, as a friend. Yeah. I like her friendship. She's cute, though. No, I can't think that. I have to ask out Julie.'_ Remus felt strange. He felt guilty when he looked at Rosie and thought the way that her freckles lightly fell across the bridge of her nose or when he noticed how sweet and caring her every movement was. _'I respect her'_ Remus was able to determine. While Remus was sorting out his thoughts, he noticed that James seemed to be going as poorly with Lily as he had anticipated.

"Oh, I see Maldhorn isn't keeping you filled in anymore," Remus heard James asking Lily.

"No, he's not," Remus could hear the tension in Lily's voice. He thought about interjecting, she obviously didn't want to talk.

"That's a shame, I'm sure he missed you on the field," James kept talking, obviously not sensing her sadness, Remus mentally willed James to just shut up.

"We're not together anymore, if you must know," Lily told the boys, Remus felt bad that James had made her say it. Remus wasn't sure why James acted like this with Lily. Remus knew that James could be caring and considerate and he was a really nice guy at heart.

"Not that its any of your business," Angelica started talking, Remus recognized her statement as a cue to drop the subject.

"Oh, we're just asking. Besides, its not like its top secret information," Sirius started talking now. _'Why are my friends so dense?'_ Remus wondered to himself, but before the subject was able to be changed, Lily excused herself. Then to Remus' dismay, Rosie excused herself to follow Lily.

"That was very nice you," Angelica sarcastically said to the boys.

"I was just curious," James defended himself.

"You couldn't have been a little nicer?" Remus could tell that Angelica was extremely unhappy with James.

"Why is it not 'top secret information'?" Mary Lou was looking at Sirius when she asked.

"Well, he was snogging some Slytherin chick on the field after the match," Sirius told her.

"I'm going to kill him," Mary Lou was now looking at Angelica when she was speaking. Remus was almost a little scared of Mary Lou and Angelica, they were both very passionate people and he could only imagine what they were capable of when they were banned together against someone.

"I can't believe that," Julie added.

"Why, what happened?" Remus finally started talking.

"Um, I don't know if we're supposed to repeat it," Julie told him.

"It's between Lily and Andrew, but they're done now and he's an ass," Mary Lou closed the conversation.

Author's Note: I really appreciate anyone who reviewed, its so nice to see feedback. Chapter 8 will definitely be up within 24 hours, and James will be given a chance to redeem himself. Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!

Completely unrelated side note: To anyone else who write fanfic, isn't it insane to look at a page in Microsoft Word with so many words unlined in red (indicating their spelled incorrectly) because the dictionary doesn't recognize any of the Harry Potter terminology? The entire Quidditch scene is a mess of red squiggly lines.

Please Review!


	8. The More I See You

Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school. The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.

Rated M because of language and sexual content, nothing graphic, but not for young eyes.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from the Harry Potter series.

Chapter 8

ROSIE

Rosie felt terrible for Lily. It was terrible to see her friend hurting so badly, especially over someone who did not deserve to be able to affect her so strongly.

"Just forget about Andrew. James' didn't know he was treading on sensitive ground," Rosie tried to console Lily.

"I think he did. He had to know what happened," Lily wasn't hiding her anger towards James.

"I really think he was just being dense. I'm sure he was curious and didn't know how to ask you," Rosie found herself defending James, not because she particularly liked him, but because everyone knew about James' not-so-secret crush on Lily and Rosie didn't think it was fair for Lily to misdirect her emotions towards James, when really it was Andrew who deserved the anger.

"Well, its none of his business, he doesn't actually care, he's nosy," Lily was squeezing her pillow in a tight body hug.

"Lily, you know he likes you. I think he just pretends to be so confident. He doesn't know what to say to you and he doesn't exactly think before he talks," Rosie told her.

"I don't know. He treats me pretty terribly for someone he supposedly likes," countless times throughout their school years, James had made Lily the subject for embarrassment. Whether he was publicly asking her out, causing her to be the attention of large groups of overbearing peers or charming her hair obnoxious colors while giving class presentations, Lily felt that James had never respected Lily's feelings or cared about what she was thinking.

"He's a boy. If you've learned anything from whats happened, you know that boys are stupid and prone to acting like asses," Julia very seriously stated, although immediately afterwards she broke out into giggles.

Lily followed suit, the girls were laughing and it was a relief to Rosie to see that Lily was beginning to be able to laugh at her misfortune.

"And I have to sit through meetings with him all day tomorrow," Lily complained.

"With who? James?" Rosie was confused.

"Yeah, we have a 9 am meeting with Professor McGonagall about organizing the Winter Formal. Then at 11 we're meeting with the prefects to divide up responsibilities and make decisions," Lily explained.

"You know, maybe spending time with James will be good for you. You might not like him, but he'll be distracting and you're not going to think about missing Andrew. James is pretty entertaining after all, and not that bad to look at," Rosie pointed out.

"Its Potter. You saw how he acted earlier, he's so insensitive," Rosie could tell that Lily wasn't on board for using James as a platform to get over Andrew.

"I don't know, its just a possibility," Rosie could tell that she was not going to make any progress. Which was fine, in Rosie's opinion, the main goal was to get Lily to be not be upset over Andrew, which Rosie had already accomplished.

SIRIUS

"That could have gone a little better," Sirius finally said once the boys had returned to the boys' dormitories. He was referring to their most recent conversation with the girls in the common room.

"Yeah, well, I didn't have a plan, I wasn't sure what to say," James defended himself.

"Maybe you should consider not making her want to cry next time," Remus teased.

"Why do I always screw up around her?" James dropped onto Sirius' bed.

"I have never seen you been worse with a girl than when you're with Lily," Sirius pointed out. It was true, James was always very smooth with girls, Sirius was usually neck and neck with James when it came to pursuing women. However, Sirius was certain that he would have a better chance with Lily, which was saying a lot considering that he was positive Lily had very little respect for himself.

"At least I know their over," James said referring to Lily and Andrew.

"So, whats your next move?" Sirius asked.

"I need to do something..." James trailed off mid sentence.

"I like your specifics," Remus was still teasing James.

"No, I need to do something really big."

"Haven't you learned anything from the past?" Remus was shaking his head at James.

"Prongs, focus. Haven't you noticed a generally unhappy response from Lily whenever you publicly do anything to her?" Sirius pointed out.

"Yeah, well, but what am I supposed to do?" James was at a loss. Sirius knew that James was used to relying on his humor and looks to win over girls. Generally, these girls were rather easy anyways. Lily Evans was a particularly type of girl. Jokes and smiles were not all that it took to get under her skin.

"You could try being considerate," Remus' tone was a little incredulous.

James was silent for a little.

"What are you thinking?" Sirius was almost worried to find out what path James' mind was going down.

"Nothing, I'm just... thinking," was all James responded with.

"You worry me sometimes, mate," Sirius laughed at his friend.

"Agreed," Remus chuckled along with his friend.

"Speaking of worry," Sirius was ready to change the subject, "Remus, how's Julia? I don't remember any questions getting asked lately."

"She's fine," Remus rolled his eyes at Sirius. Sirius was not a fan of Remus taking his sweet time asking out Julie. He remembered hooking up with Mary Lou, and what she promised him if he could make this promise happen. Part of him was tempted to tell Mary Lou it happened, follow through with the deal and then deal with her anger when she found out the truth later.

"So, is there an estimated time frame?" Sirius was only half joking when he asked Remus this. He really just wanted to get in bed with Mary Lou, and if Remus was involved with someone else, he would step off. However, Remus was happy and single and not coming through for Sirius.

"If you ask again, its not happening," Remus responded.

"Fine, I understand," Sirius said,_ 'Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to lie to her and just deal with her hating me.'_

LILY

Lily was surprised to find that James was waiting for her as she walked out into their common room the morning.

"I thought we could head over to the meetings together," James stood up when he heard her come out of her room.

"Oh, thanks for waiting. I would have gotten ready faster if I knew you were waiting," Lily was a taken a little off guard by James being nice to her just for the sake of it.

"Nah, we're still on time," James waived away her concern, "I grabbed you some pumpkin bread from breakfast, in case you hadn't had a chance to go."

_'What is going on?'_ Lily wondered.

"That's really nice of you, thanks," she said as he handed her two sliced on pumpkin bread that he had wrapped together carefully in two napkins.

"So, let's head out?" James suggested as he led her to the door.

_'He's probably just babying me because he found out about Andrew and feels bad,'_ Lily told herself. Their walk to the classroom where the meetings were being held was mostly silent.

"So, have you thought about this dance at all?" James asked Lily.

"Not really, I think we should keep it classic, nothing too crazy so we don't get overwhelmed," Lily told him. She really hadn't put any thought into what they were going to do. After her breakup, she really didn't want to think about putting together a night for other couples to enjoy and think about how happy they were together.

"That makes sense," was all that James responded with.

"There you two are," Professor McGonagall greeted them when they finally made it to the classroom where the meetings were supposed to take place.

Professor McGonagall was seated at the desk in the front of the class as Lily and James took seats in the very front row.

Lily pulled a notebook from her bag to take notes.

"As you know, there was a strong student desire for a Winter Formal," Professor McGonagall started to speak and Lily remembered the end of last year. Lily was not sure exactly who started the campaign, but seemingly out of no where, there was a school wide demand for Hogwarts to offer a function, namely a dance, for their students. Dumbledore was impressed with the student's ability to come together and organize a petition for a school event, and so he granted the students a Winter Formal.

"Hogwarts is not known as a lackadaisical, party school for slackers," Professor McGonagall continued, "and so as Head Girl and Head Boy, it is your responsibility to maintain order and function to this event."

Lily and James nodded their heads in unison agreement.

"So, have you two developed any planning or ideas for this event?"

"Well, we determined that it was important for us to deliberate tasks among the prefects, to make sure that every house is involved with the activities," Lily piped in. They hadn't actually previously spoken about anything regarding the dance, but Professor McGonagall didn't need to know that.

"That's a very good idea, Miss Evans. Anything to add Mr. Potter?"

"Um... well," Lily saw James sit up straighter in his desk, "what if we made it a whole day event?"

"What do you mean?" Professor McGonagall asked him. Lily wasn't sure where James was going with his proposal, she wasn't even sure if he knew where he was going with his proposal either.

"Well, presumably this event is happening on a Saturday night," James explained, "so, why don't we incorporate the Quidditch match into a pre-event game. Or we could arrange a mini-tournament, for the Winter Cup," Lily could tell that James was pretty proud of himself for making that up on the spot.

"That's pretty impressive, Potter," Professor McGonagall told him.

"I think that would help the fairness in addressing whether or not the younger students should be able to attend the Formal," Lily found herself agreeing with James. She was a little impressed with his involvement, she had expected him to take a back seat on this project.

"Yes, what do you intend to propose for the younger students?" Professor McGonagall inquired.

"Well, I think its only fair that a majority of the night is reserved for students in their 5th year and up. The petition for a Formal event was created by the older students because they wanted entertainment for themselves. So maybe the Quidditch games in the morning would be for everyone, and we can do a large feast following it so that the younger students don't feel left out on the party," Lily proposed.

"Well, if we held a feast following the games, where would we have it? The Great Hall would need to be decorated for the Winter Formal," James reminded her.

"Um, could we do the feast right on the pitch?" Lily proposed. She wasn't sure what the policy was for eating on the field.

"That would be something to look into," Professor McGonagall seemed impressed with their ideas, "I'm going to leave you two to plan out details so that you can present it to the prefects. I suggest that you keep with the idea of incorporating all of the houses into the planning," Professor McGonagall left them with this statement, Lily and James were alone in the empty classroom.

"Okay, so let's just get on paper all of the components that we're going to need to divide up for the prefects. I think that they should be able to choose which areas they want to cover, they know their strengths better than we do," Lily started to get down to business.

"Lily, I'm really sorry about yesterday," Lily's heart sunk a little, she didn't want to talk about their conversation from the previous day, she wanted to forget it happened.

"Its fine, please drop it," Lily didn't look at James when she responded.

"I just wanted you to know, I know I was being an ass. I didn't meant to I just-"

"James, please, I don't want to be reminded," Lily interrupted him. She looked into his eyes and she saw something that she wasn't used to seeing. She reckoned it was sincerity. She looked away from eyes, she noticed his high cheekbones and the lightly tanned skin that covered them. She looked at the light stubble that was beginning to grow back in the hollows of his cheeks. 'When did James get so handsome?' she caught herself wondering. She wanted to hit herself, _'I'm loosing my mind,'_ she told herself.

"I understand," James nodded. _'Did he notice me checking him out?'_ Lily felt nervous, she didn't understand the rush of emotions that she was experiencing.

"So, let's um, let's write down the, um," Lily couldn't remember what she was trying to say.

"You want to write down all the details that we need to get together?" James finished her attempt at a sentence for her.

"Yeah."

"Okay, well, food and music are the big ones," James started brain storming.

"Right, should we try for live music? That would be pretty cool," Lily added.

"Yeah, I like that idea, do we have a budget?" James asked.

"Uh, I don't know," Lily smiled, as far as she was concerned, James was making up for years of being an arrogant idiot.

"Okay so, depending on the budget, we'll get a live band," James clarified.

Lily made a note at the top of her paper to ask about the budget.

"We should make it a vote, to see who to try to get, and then whichever band has the most amount of votes and will be willing to come to Hogwarts will be our band," Lily added.

"Excellent."

"So, food, we'll make it traditional holiday, right? We should offer a sit down dinner then the band will start after it," Lily proposed, this event planning was turning out to be easier than she had anticipated.

"Okay, and we'll just do recorded music before dinner," James offered.

"Yeah, so now we have to talk about theme. I think an easy Winter Wonderland idea would be best, lots of white and cream, maybe some light blue. Lots of fluff," Lily stated.

"Okay."

"So, it'll just be important to get all of the decorating done in an organized manner before the events. Its not fair to make the prefects miss out on the Quidditch games and feast so that they can set up the Great Hall," Lily pointed out.

"So, we'll need to make a schedule?" James asked.

"Yeah, something that wont interfere with other activities, we'll need to bring it up at the prefects meeting," Lily said.

"This is going pretty well," James noted.

"Yeah, I'm impressed, I was scared this was going to be a mess," Lily admitted. She looked at his arms, they were beautifully built. It was from the years of being an athlete, he was defined perfectly, she imagined how strong his forearms would feel under her small hands. She looked at his large hands. She bit her lip as she thought about his hands on her. His large hands around her small waist, on her thighs, on her- no. Lily was not going to think about his hands on her body. She forced herself to stop her ridiculous fantasizing.

"Are you okay?" James looked concerned when he asked Lily. She was suddenly very aware that she was biting her lower lip and probably blushing.

"What? I'm fine." She decided it was best to act like he was imagining things.

"So, food, music, decorations, what else?" Lily tried to keep the planning going.

"We need to work out how we'd organize Qudditch events for the game. We could have the first game be the game that is already scheduled to play, but we'll make it earlier in the morning, then let's have the two houses that didn't play, have a match. I doubt we'll have time for a third game for the two winners to compete," James told her.

"That's okay, it'll be better for school spirit if we have two houses feeling victorious instead of just one," Lily pointed out.

"Okay, maybe I'll set up a meeting with the four team captains and see if they will be up for the changes," James volunteered.

"That would be great," Lily was amazed. '_Who is this man sitting next to me, and what did he do with Potter?'_

"So, what about clean up?" Lily was always practical, "It's not going to be fun, but they are going to want the Great Hall clean before breakfast the next day.

"Ugh, I don't know, isn't that what house elves are for?" James responded.

"I feel bad just dumping it on someone else."

"That's so nice of you, but its their job, they like it," James was smiling as he responded.

"If you say so," Lily found herself agreeing with James.

It was apparent that their meeting was about to wrap up.

"We have a little bit of time before we have to go to the meeting with the prefects," James pointed out.

"Yeah," Lily couldn't think of anything to say.

"So, are you okay with everything that's going on?" Lily knew that James was referencing her break up.

"Um, I don't really want to talk about it," Lily wished that she never had to hear about it again.

"Okay, I understand. I just want you to know, that I'm here. I'm literally next door to you, so if you need anything," James offered.

"Um, thanks, but I think I'm okay. I'm ready to forget it," Lily told him.

"Oh, that's great," James looked like he regretted saying that after it was out of his mouth.

_'Maybe Rosie was right, he might sincerely like me.'_

Author's Note: This hurricane is killing me, I want to get this story up before I lose power and I'm not able to. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. And I'd like to remind you guys that this is rated M and while the chapters that have been laying groundwork for the characters have all been pretty light so far, its going to start getting more a little more adult.

Please Review, I love reading them!


	9. Just What I Needed

Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school. The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.

Rated M because of language and sexual content, nothing graphic, but not for young eyes.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from the Harry Potter series.

First, I'd like to say that I am not abandoning this story, I have a heavily course load during the school year but I am now on summer and I can go back to writing this. I planned the entire plot line out and wrote specific pieces to the story in advanced so I will definitely be making all this effort mean something. Also, I went through and edited my previous chapters for typos or things that logistically didn't make sense (albeit, some mistakes were rather embarrassing). If you guys come across typos or plot gaps when your reading, feel free to leave me a comment and let me know.

Thanks so much reading!

Chapter 9

REMUS

The weekend had passed rather uneventfully, after the loss of the Quidditch match, there was an overall glum atmosphere throughout the Gryffindor house. Remus prepared for his classes while noting that it was Tuesday and he needed to leave time to get to the library, though it wouldn't be too difficult since both James and Sirius would be at Quidditch practice for the majority of the evening.

"Oi, why are you always up so early for class?" Sirius began to stur in his bed.

"We have to be there in half an hour, I'm not that early," Remus knew that Sirius generally liked to wait until the last possible second to get out of bed, "besides, if you don't eat something first, we're all going to have to hear about your starvation for the rest of the day," Remus heard a grunt or two from Sirius as he sat up in his bed and began to acknowledge the day.

"Hey!" Sirius shouted as he tossed an old crumpled up homework assignment at Peter to wake him up, Remus shook his head and continued to pack his school bag, making sure not to miss anything.

In a matter of seconds, Sirius was dressed and ready at the door waiting to go grab something to eat. It always amazed Remus at how quickly Sirius could do anything, of course it helped that he cut corners and paid little attention to detail, but that was enough for his friend.

By the time the boys had arrived at class, James had joined them. The group had settled at their usual table towards the back of the classroom; close enough to the front for Remus to pay attention and close enough to the back for Sirius and James to slack off without being too easily noticed. However, Remus found himself being distracted from the lesson for reasons other than his rowdy group of friends. He was thinking about Rosie and the library that night. She was cute and sweet and from what he could gather, rather intelligent. Remus couldn't determine why he hadn't ever paid her much attention before, though he figured it probably had to do with her constantly being surrounded by all her friends. Remus looked over at Rosie as she sat in her chair. Her head was tilted to the side as she rotated between looking down at her notes and up to the lecturing professor.

Remus couldn't help but notice Julia sitting next to Rosie. The whole scenario with Sirius and Mary Lou was ridiculous to him. Remus knew that Julia was good person and rather interesting but the situation made him uneasy. Perhaps, she would be a fun date, besides he knew that she already liked him and he didn't really know where he stood with Rosie. He didn't actually know how he felt about her, but he couldn't help being pulled towards her.

Remus tried to shake these thoughts and pay attention to the class, he was never one to get caught up in crushes and chase girls. He was giving himself a headache and he didn't like the confusion that he was bringing upon himself.

JAMES

James found himself being very distracted throughout all his classes that day. He hadn't spoken to Lily since their rather productive meeting on Sunday morning, but he had high hopes for the direction of their relationship, especially considering her newly single lifestyle.

He knew he had to keep the line of communication open, it took him almost seven years to finally get a positive relationship with Lily and he wasn't about to lose it. Everything in James' life since his morning with Lily seemed quieter and less interesting. James couldn't help but feel like a sap, but he couldn't control it.

He had to get a meeting set up with the other three Quidditch captains to get things moving for the Winter Formal games. Getting a meeting together with four boys all from different houses was going to be difficult, if not miserable. James was not feeling up to the task of tracking down the Slytherin captain and having a civil conversation with him, he also did not feel like catching up Andrew Maldhorn anytime soon, although he would like to rub his new friendship with Lily in Andrew's face. Finding the time to see the Hufflepuff captain would not be difficult, James figured that perhaps he should start there after class.

"Mate, I want to get out of here," James whispered to Sirius who busy making eyes with a girl across the room.

"You think I want to be here?" Sirius responded.

"This is incredibly boring. What am I learning?" James muttered as he put his head in his hands.

"You're learning how to sleep with your eyes open," Sirius suggested, finally turning away from the pretty blond he'd been silently flirting with.

"We don't have anything due soon for this class right? I'd like to completely disengage from this without feeling guilty."

"Nope, not that I know of," Sirius responded.

"Excellent."

"We have an essay due next class," Remus piped in for two seconds to set his friends straight, "now shut up."

"Someone's feeling grumpy," Sirius teased Remus.

"I'm not, I'm fine, just trying very hard to focus and you two are making it harder."

"Alright, alright. You're lucky we like you so much, Mooney. Otherwise you can be quite the nerdy buzz kill."

"Thanks a lot, Padfoot."

After class, James temporarily separated from his group to try to catch Henry Bell, the Hufflepuff captain, before he left.

"Oi, Henry!" James gave a quick shout as he approached.

"Oh, James," Henry was a little surprised as he turned around to see James approaching, "what's up?"

"Well, I'm working on this Winter Formal stuff with Lily and the prefects. We want to do two small games Quidditch games in the morning before the dance followed by a feast," James began to explain.

"Oh, that sounds great," it was as easy to get Henry on board as James had anticipated.

"I'm glad you think so. I just need at the captains to agree to it."

"Oh, sure I'm on board," Henry gave his approval, "have you talked to anyone else?"

"Not yet, but I'm really pushing for this," James told him, "I just need to set up a short meeting sometime this week to hash out the details with all the captains."

"Oh, well I'm pretty much always free, except we have practice on Wednesday evenings and I can't miss that. So any other time I can arrange for."

"Good," James was relieved, "that was easy. I have a feeling it wont be so easy with everyone else," James was happy that Henry was so easy, but not so thankful that the easy part was over.

"Yeah," Henry gave a laugh, "have fun with that."

ROSIE

Remus was sitting across from her in the library. They were both silently focused on their assignments, but Rosie couldn't focus much with Remus sitting across from her. She also couldn't think of anything to say to strike up a conversation. She began to fidget in her seat as she stared down into her notes. She began to rub the sole of her black patent oxford shoe with the other when she felt her felt her left foot slip off the top of the right and slam into a hard object under the table. For a moment, Rosie flinched and prayed that she had kicked the table leg, but when she heard the audible gasp come from Remus, she knew that she had drilled her foot into his shin.

"I am so, so sorry," Rosie immediately apologized, with eyes wide with fear that he would be upset. To her relief, Remus let out a brief chuckle.

"It's fine, I imagine you didn't purposely do that."

"No, of course not!" Rosie smiled with relief, "I was fidgeting and I slipped," she explained.

"I understand," Remus said sitting back in his chair, "I'm getting a little restless sitting here for so long."

"Yeah, sometimes its tough sitting in silence for so long," Rosie replied, though she wanted to add that the only reason she was finding difficulty sitting still was Remus' presence across from her.

"Would you wanna take a break and go for a walk?" Rosie thought her whole body was going to melt when Remus asked her.

"Yeah, totally," Rosie was doing her best to suppress her excitement, as to not seem over eager.

The pair packed up their books and left the library.

"So, what were you studying for?" Remus asked her when they were out of the library and able to speak at normal volume.

"Well, I was doing the reading for Potions tomorrow. I feel like I can be a slow reader, or at least slow at pulling information out of reading so I like to be really prepped the night before so that I don't waste time in class," Rosie felt like she must sound incredibly boring.

"That makes sense," he offered.

"Yeah," Rosie couldn't think of much more to add, "what about you?"

"I was working on an essay. You were right though, about the library. I'm almost never able to get more than hour of work time when I'm outside of it."

"Well, I'm glad that it was a helpful suggestion."

"So what are your plans for the rest of the night?" Remus asked her. She was refreshed by his politeness and kindness. He was definitely not like most of the boys in her year, and from what she could tell he was much different than Sirius and James.

"Well, nothing," she responded, feeling almost lame, "I suppose I'm headed back to my room and see what the rest of the girls have gotten up to. You?"

"Well I might have a few more moments of silence, both James and Sirius are at Quidditch practice."

"Oh, that's good then."

"Yeah."

The two walked a little more in silence, Rosie began to over think the silence. What should she say? Should she wait for him to say something? Should she ask him about himself? Thankfully, Remus finally spoke up.

"Ya know, I don't think we've spoken much in the seven years we've been at Hogwarts together," Remus pointed out.

"I know, it seems we haven't overlapped too much. Which is odd because statistically, we probably should have by now," Rosie smiled at him.

"It's a shame, you seem much more grounded than most of the people in our year."

_'Grounded?'_ Rosie thought to herself, _'Well, at least he thinks I'm a decent person. I'll take that as a compliment.'_

"Yeah," Rosie could feel her cheeks get warm at his slight compliment, then the conversation went silent for a few more minutes. She looked over at Remus, he was looking down at his feet as he walked. She wondered if he was more similar to herself than she had thought.

"Yeah," Remus started talking again, "I think James and Sirius are going to be at practice again Thursday night, if you want to join me in the library again."

"Of course," Rosie worried for a moment if she had answered too quickly, but she almost didn't care. Remus Lupin had asked her for a third study evening sitting across from her in silence in the library. As sad as it seemed, this was the furthest an interaction between Rosie and a boy had gone in all seventeen years of her existence.

"Great, I'll see you Thursday then," Remus said to her as they neared the portrait entrance to the dormitories.

"Well, I'll see you in class Wednesday too," Rosie gave a small giggle, "but yes, definitely Thursday night too."

"Sounds good."

Rosie practically floated up to the girls' dormitories. She wanted to gush over Remus, but she worried about seeming over eager, technically nothing too special had actually happened. She wondered what her friends would say. Mary Lou would probably be enthusiastic that Rosie finally showed interest in dating or sex at the slightest, Angelica would probably just smile and nod along with Angelica and Julia- oh, Rosie felt her heart drop into her stomach. Julia. Hadn't Julia just admitted to having a crush on Remus? Yes. No. What awful timing. Rosie emotional high was crushed as she opened the door to the girl's dormitories. She couldn't say a thing about her evening with Remus.

I hope you guys liked it. Not so much Lily and James in this chapter because the story centers around them and their friends, hopefully you enjoyed it and will review.


	10. Change Your Mind

Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school. The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.

Rated M because of language and sexual content, nothing graphic, but not for young eyes.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from the Harry Potter series.

This chapter is going to be shorter, but another one is coming quickly after. I just wanted this to be singled out and not mixed in with everyone else's drama.

Thanks so much reading and let me know what you guys are thinking with a review!

Chapter 10

LILY

"Hey!" Lily heard someone shouting for her as she made her way to her bedroom. She knew without looking that it was James, both because she could easily recognize his voice and because he was the only male who would follow her into the Head's Common Room. Lily stopped walking and spun around to see him.

"Um, hey," she started, "what's going on?"

"Oh, well, you know," James gave her a rather nonchalant answer.

"Did you need something?" Lily wasn't really sure where this conversation was going. It seemed to Lily that James could go in either direction, he was either a complete jerk or he was able to demonstrate consideration and level headedness.

"Nah, just wanted to see how you're doing. I haven't spoken to you almost all week."

"Oh, well its only Wednesday," Lily pointed out.

"Well, what are you up to tonight?" James asked her.

_'Oh, great. This again._' Lily found herself in an annoyance.

James had spent the better part of their fourth and fifth year constantly badgering Lily for a date, to the point where Lily truly began to despise him. Lily could never make sense of the possible thought process that could have been going through his head at the time. It was clear to her that he was just doing it for the humorous effect to entertain his friends and their peers at Lily's expense. At the worst of it, Lily dreaded leaving her room, even go to the common room, because she knew that James would make her the center of an unwanted spectacle. Recently, James had stopped with the persistent asking, but he still gave her too much unwanted attention, she had hoped that he was past his phase of asking her out for humor, but it sounded like he was going to do it again.

"I'm pretty busy with school work," Lily immediately told him. Lily feared that as soon as he asked her out once, it would never stop.

"I can help."

"I'm doing fine in my classes, I don't need help."

"That's not what I was insinuating."

"I'm sure it wasn't," Lily sarcastically responding while crossing her arms.

The conversation had taken a turn for the worse. Lily was annoyed and a little let down. She had thought James' behavior on Sunday might have been indicative of James growing up, but instead they were bickering like they always had.

James exhaled and appeared to be thinking.

"Look, I just," he started, "I don't know."

Lily looked at James, he looked defeated. Lily didn't recognize the person standing in front of her. _'Potter? At a loss for words? He must be ill, this is the strangest I've ever seen him behave,'_ Lily thought to herself.

"Um, are you alright?" Lily asked, "You seem ... a little off."

"I'm fine, let's get dinner," James had appeared to suddenly shake off whatever fit of unusualness that he had been hit with as he smiled at her and asked her to dinner.

"I have homework," Lily reminded him.

"You have plenty of time. Let's go," James said to her and he locked his arm in hers and gently swung her around to leave their common room.

"What?" Lily let herself laugh at his boldness. Something felt weird inside of Lily as she giggled at James' antics. It was against everything she had stood for during their entire school career. She hated him, his arrogance was annoying not charming. But she didn't find herself protesting. She gave into his dinner request and she had an unfamiliar feeling of happiness. It wasn't like the joy she got from giggling with her girlfriends, it was a warm happiness that someone who was outside of her usual, close knit world had a desire to be around her and she felt wanted. It had been a long time since Lily had felt that with a boy. She tried to keep Andrew out her mind, but she could feel herself slip and compare Andrew with James. She didn't know why she suddenly was putting James on another level, but it felt right to her.

The pair walked rather loudly to the Great Hall to grab food. Notice was taken by fellow students in their year, their peers had grown accustomed to Lily and James' loud fights or huge displays. Lily ignored the looks that she received from the girls she knew who loved to gossip. She and James were friends. New friends. But just friends.

When they sat at the Gryffindor table, they sat across from each other.

"So, what's new?" James asked her as they ate.

"Since you asked me about ten minutes ago?" Lily teased, "not too much. You?"

"Eh, same here," James responded, but then his eyes lit up, "I got Henry on board with the Quidditch game in the morning before the formal."

"Oh great!" Lily was impressed at how quickly James had acted on his word, "Any luck with the others?"

"Well, I'm not looking forward to it, honestly," James told her, "but I'm working on it."

"At least we could have a Gryffindor and Hufflepuff match, even if the other two decide not to comply," Lily pointed out.

"But where's the fun in that?" James joked.

"Oh, because Gryffindor would automatically win?" Lily asked.

"Where's your team spirit? Of course we'd win that!" James was almost shouting, but it was a positive shout.

"My team spirit? I'm not on the team," Lily pointed out to him.

"Oh yes you are, you were on the team from the second that hat put you into this house!" James informed her. Lily burst into laughter at James' ridiculousness.

"You are really into the whole 'house pride' thing, aren't you?"

"You should be too _Miss Head Girl_," he teased her.

"Sorry, I think you'll be disappointed to know that my level of enthusiasm for sports and teams and decorating my face with ridiculous colors is rather low."

"That's a shame, you should lose your badge over that," James told her.

"Well, you'll have to bring that up with Dumbledore," she let him know. She was feeling truly entertained by him, she couldn't take the smile off her face if she tried. However, she didn't have to. As she laughed with James at their table, she couldn't help notice when she looked up that Andrew was walking through the doors with Adrienne attached to him. Her heart felt strange as the smile disappeared from her face.

"You okay?" James asked, obviously noticing the sudden change in her attitude.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Lily was fine. She wasn't upset to see Andrew, she was over it. It was just unsettling to see the guy she thought she loved a few weeks ago so close with another girl so soon. It was almost a let down to Lily, but she was hardly about to cry.

James turned around to see what Lily had noticed that made her change.

"Oh, sorry about that," he said as he realized what had happened.

"Don't be sorry," she told him, "I'm fine and its good that we're over. He's a lot worse of a person than I thought he was."

"Yeah, I _did_ try to tell you," James muttered.

"Well, you weren't really in a position to tell me who I should and should not date."

"Am I now?" James was pushing her with this question.

"Well there's no one for you to give an opinion on, so you don't have to worry about it."

"No one?" he asked, "no one at all?"

"Nope."

"Are you sure? Not even a well built Quidditch captain, with the face of an angel and personality of a god?"

"That cannot be what you honestly think of yourself."

"You think of me when you hear those words together? How flattering!" James joked.

"Oh, ha ha," Lily dryly returned.

"So, what did happen with Maldhorn?"

"I really don't wanna talk about it."

"Alright, sorry."

"Its fine."

Later that night, as Lily lay down in bed, she processed the events of the evening. After their encounter on Sunday, she had been warming up to James as a person. But she had actually enjoyed herself with him tonight.

_'I have no idea what's going on in my head anymore.'_ Lily thought to herself._ 'Could my entire outlook on a person that I hated for so long change in such a short time? Am I missing something?'_ Then her heart sank a little, _'Am I walking into something? Is this a joke? Oh, no, please don't let this be a joke. No. I need to stop. Just because Andrew was a jerk and inconsiderate to my feelings doesn't mean every guy is.'_ Lily told herself.

_'But Potter is inconsiderate to my feelings. He always has been. No,wait, his name is James. No, he's Potter. No, its James.'_ Lily tossed in her bed, she was giving herself a headache.

'_Okay Lily,'_ she told herself, _'its Potter, people don't change in a matter of days. He never cared how miserable he made you when he was making you into a public display of humiliation'_ she reminded herself. Then her heart sank a little lower.

_'Oh, no. I'm just one of his "girls." Those stupid bimbos who laugh at everything he says and hangs on his every word and does whatever he says because he's so handsome.'_ Lily felt degraded. How had she fallen into that trap? Of course she was just another easy girl to him. _'And I was so easy'_ Lily felt ashamed, _'It took him how long? Four days for him to get inside of head? I'm pathetic,'_ Lily told herself as she tossed again in her bed.

'_Or am I just delusional because of Andrew? Is my trust ruined?'_ Lily couldn't take it anymore, she was making herself insane.

She tried to remember the exact feelings that she had when she returned from dinner with James. Lily wanted to harvest those feelings. Overly developed or not, Lily wanted to fall asleep surrounded by the warm feeling of happiness that James had given her.

So that's the chapter, its the shortest one so far, but, like I said, I wanted Lily to have her own one this time. Next chapter is about the boys and it will be up soon! I promise.

Reviews? Yes? Please?


	11. Radioactive

Summary: 'King' follows the story of Lily and James coming together in their final year at school. The story also follows the stories of their closest friends, and rotates narration based on the story being told.

Rated M because of language and sexual content, nothing graphic, but not for young eyes.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from the Harry Potter series.

Warning: This is a slightly sexy chapter.

Chapter 11

REMUS

It was Thursday evening, Remus was in the library waiting for Rosie to come join him. He found himself looking forward to seeing Rosie in the library throughout his day. He liked how peaceful she was while also being stimulating. He didn't have many people like that in his life.

"Hey," a soft voice greeted him, it was Rosie, of course, as she sat down across from him at their regular table.

"Hello," he whispered back while he gave her a smile.

"I see you're also doing the reading for advanced potions," Rosie said as she pulled out the same text book that Remus had open in front of him.

"Yes, I am," he told her, "I think its purposely written in the most confusing manner to throw off students and make the assignments harder."

"I agree, a lot of the text is unnecessary and runs you in circles," Rosie replied.

"Well, I'm glad I've started coming down here to read, its even harder trying to figure out the instructions when you have Sirius rushing you in class for the shortened instructions list so he can be done as quickly as possible."

"That does sounds stressful," Rosie gave a light laugh.

"Indeed," Remus replied.

The pair worked for over an hour on decoding their assignment for the next day while extracting important notes from the reading.

"My eyes are going to fall out of my head if I look at this book any longer," Rosie let her hands fall into her lap as she pulled away from her text book. Remus looked up at her, even though her eyes were tired, he couldn't help notice how beautiful her blue eyes were, they were a soft, clear blue with a black ring of pigment around the outermost edge.

"I understand completely," Remus told her giving a small chuckle, "let's get out of here?"

"Yeah, let's."

They walked back to the common room together.

"So, any good plans for the weekend?" he asked her.

"Not really, I'm sure we're going the game on Saturday," Rosie told him. He figured that by we she meant her and her friends. It wasn't a Gryffindor game, but the girls seemed to be at all of the games.

"Oh, that's fun."

"I suppose, I'm not too crazy about the game itself, but I like being with the group, it makes it enjoyable."

"Well, I'll probably see you there, I doubt anyone has anything better to do on Saturday morning."

"Probably not."

They stood in silence in front of the portrait to the common room. Remus felt something strange in him. He looked into Rosie's eyes, and he noticed that she didn't seem to be protesting him standing so close to her.

"Rosie," he started, but he didn't know where he was going with his sentence.

"Yeah?" she quietly asked him. Her eyes looked like she was waiting for him to do exactly what he was feeling compelled to do in his gut.

Without thinking for a moment more, he gave her a kiss. It was short and sweet and on her lips. He looked at her and tried to read her emotions off her face, but he couldn't.

"I'm sorry," he stammered out.

"Don't be sorry, Remus," she whispered as they stood huddled very close to each other.

"Um, well," he started, "I have some time before they get back from practice if you want you come up and keep me company."

"Alright," she smiled at him.

Remus closed the bedroom door behind him, and when he turned to look at her, she was already turned around looking at him. He walked closer to her, and then, with all of his shyness suppressed, he mustered up every ounce of confidence in his body and kissed her again.

This time, he felt her give herself into the kiss. He put his hands around her waist as they continued kissing. Remus wasn't sure how far they going and he was worried about crossing her line of comfortability. Remus pulled away for a moment.

"Come on," he whispered while he led her to his bed. He sat down on it, and she followed.

They kept kissing, but Remus was surprised when Rosie initiated the next step. She put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a soft rub before she traced the lining of the seam across the top of his shoulder to the collar of his shirt. She ran her hand along the edge of his collar until her hand hit the knot of his tie.

She looked up at him with wide eyes as she pulled away for a moment. Remus looked back at her.

"Do you want to?" he asked her.

"I've never," she whispered to him.

"Me either," he whispered back.

She gave him a smile and she looked down and he noticed a warm blush spread across her cheeks.

He found her lips and began kissing again. She started to play with his tie, fumbling for a moment with untying it. Remus found himself smiling through the kisses as she was stumped by his tie. He moved his fingers up to meet hers and he removed the tie himself.

"Thanks," she whispered as giggled up at him.

As he tossed his tie down to the bottom of his bed, he moved his hands to her shirt. He was hesitant at first. Three weeks ago, he had barely known Rosie. He had never really even spoken to her until almost two weeks ago. Yet here she was, on his bed, ready to have sex with him.

He realized that she must have sensed his hesitation.

"Its okay," she whispered to him as she pulled away from kissing him.

He unbuttoned her top button. Then the next. All way down until her blouse was completely open and untucked from her school uniform. Under her white blouse, she wore a pale lavender lace bralette. It was simple and feminine and Remus recognized that he had never felt so attracted to another person in his life.

She shrugged her top off of her shoulders, he guided her back toward the top of his bed, as he got on top of her. He took his shirt off but left his undershirt on. He felt a pain through his stomach. He remember the scars on his back and his chest. He felt disgusted with himself for being such a monster.

Maybe she wouldn't notice if he just kept his undershirt on the whole time.

He put his hand on her thigh as he moved his lips from hers down her neck, kissing the top of her breasts and landing on her stomach. As his lips went lower, his hand went higher. When his hand reached the fabric of her underwear, he looked up at her.

"You're sure?" he checked before he went too far. He didn't want to cause her to regret anything.

"Remus, I'm sure."

The sound of his name in her voice made his heart jump.

She sat up for a moment and found the zipper to her skirt. She pulled down the zipper, and shrugged the rest of the skirt off. He had to stop and admire her. Underneath of him, she lay on his bed wearing her perfect little lavender lace panties and soft bralette. She was beautiful to him and for a moment he couldn't remember what to do next.

Of course he quickly remembered.

He moved his lips back to hers and gave her passionate kisses. She moved her hands to the zipper of his trousers as she undid them. He helped her pulled them down. He was self conscious about his erection, his was fully ready for her, but he didn't yet know if she was ready for him.

He moved his hands back to her underwear. He felt her warmth through the fabric, he gently rubbed her in small circles through it. He heard her inhale deeply as he felt the fabric beneath his finger slowly become damp.

"Remus," she whispered.

He felt a surge of excitement jolt through himself and his own erection began to pulse.

He slipped his fingers under her panties. His fingers moved to her clit, she was wet and warm as he gently played with her for a moment.

"Oh, Remus. Please," she quietly begged him.

He removed her panties completely along with his own underwear.

"Okay, Rosie," he was sitting up with his member ready outside of her as she laid on her back on his bed, "tell me if you need me to...do...anything."

He wasn't sure exactly how to phrase what he was telling her. He wasn't sure how much it would hurt her, if it did at all. He had been told various stories from his friends about deflowering girls, and he didn't really know the extent to which they had taken creative liberty with the stories.

He slowly inserted the tip inside of her. She was so tight to him. He looked up for any signs of emotion on her face. She had bitten her lip. He pulled out a little, and then reinserted a little bit further. He heard her inhale again.

He repeated the motion again, pulling out a little bit but then slowly pushing further in. He worked on this a few times until he had made it completely inside her. He felt nothing like he had ever felt before. Every inch of his pulsing erection was being hugged by her warm and soft opening. As he moved inside of her, he felt every inch of her moulding to fit him perfectly. Every part of him was being stimulated. He put his hands on her hips and used it to help him pull her closer to him as he pushed himself deeper into her and then gently brought her back as he slightly withdrew.

While he continued this motion, he sped up each time. He heard her breathing increase with his speed. He let out his own short moan of satisfaction. He didn't want to stop, but he felt himself hitting his full potential. He felt a rush go through him and then quickly felt a jolt of panic. They had not set a protection charm. He pulled out as quickly as possible and he couldn't help the noise escape his lips as he finished on his sheets. He looked up at Rosie, she looked down at him.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Of course," he told her. He was okay. He looked down, there was blood on him and in his cum. Of course, it was from Rosie, as it was her first time. The blood had splattered somewhat on the side of her inner thighs. He tried not to look, and he realized she would probably be self conscious about the aftermath.

"How do you feel?" He asked her as he came off of her.

"I'm good, Remus."

"Your going to need to clean yourself," he quietly let her know, "its fine, it happens. Its supposed to. I'm just...letting you know."

"Oh!" she exclaimed as her cheeks turned deep red and shut her legs together, "could you hand me my wand?" she timidly asked him.

"Of course," he reached for her bag on the floor and put it next to her on the bed. As she mumbled a quick cleaning spell, he muttered his own. Her blood was on both him and as his bed.

"They'll be back soon, wont they?" she asked him as she pulled her clothing back on.

"Yeah, they should be," he knew she was referring to James, Sirius and Peter.

As she stood in front of him, fully dressed, making her way to the door, Remus got off the bed and walked over to her.

He gave her a kiss on the cheek, "same time next Tuesday?" he whispered in her ear.

She looked up at him with a smile on her lips. She nodded her head while giving her lower lip a small bite.

JAMES

Practice had ended for the Gryffindor team and as his team mates left the field, the Ravenclaw team began to file onto it. He wasn't looking forward to it, but he needed to find Maldhorn and get him to agree to meeting about the game before the formal. When he spotted Maldhorn, he called out to him.

"Oi, Maldhorn!"

"What, Potter?" Andrew's tone was not happy.

"Look, I'm not here to give you shit, I'm here because I have to talk to you because I'm the Head Boy and your the captain of the Ravenclaw team," James explained. It was rare that the boys were able to have a civil conversation.

"Well, what do you want?"

"We're trying to put together a small match before the formal in December and we need cooperation from all the captains. Hufflepuff and obviously Gryffindor are in, but all four of us need to meet up and agree on the details together."

"When?" Andrew wasn't enthusiastic about talking to James, but at least he was cooperating.

"I'm thinking on Monday evening. Before the Slytherin practice at 7:00. We could meet on the pitch, it shouldn't take long."

"Fine, Potter, I'll be there,"

"Great," James' response bordered on heavy sarcasm, though he was honestly relieved that Maldhorn had complied so easily, but then Maldhorn got a little closer to James and dropped his voice quieter.

"And don't think I haven't seen you getting cozy with Lily, you need to back off," James gave Andrew a darker look.

"Oh, jealous?" James taunted him, "in case you hadn't noticed, you lost Lily, and she's none of your business anymore."

"Lost her?" Andrew scoffed at James, "more like tossed her aside. I had for her for a good fuck and I'm done with her."

"Then why is it any of your business what I do with her?" James practically growled at Andrew. If he had his wand on him, he would hexed him already for speaking about Lily like that.

"Because I fucked her first. Remember that, Potter," Andrew got closer to James, snarling in his ear, "no matter what you do, I'll have been there first. No matter what you touch, my hands were there first, no matter what you kiss, I kissed first, no matter how hard you fuck her, I fucked her first. And you'll never change that."

James couldn't control his anger. He knew Andrew was taunting him because he was an ass, but that didn't mean James didn't want to strangle him and while James did not have his wand on him, he did still have two fists. Before James could think his plan out, his right fist had connected with Andrew's jaw.

Andrew let out a noise of anger and pain.

"I'm going to kill you, Potter!" Andrew shouted standing back up.

Before James could think, Sirius was at his side.

"Back off Maldhorn," Sirius sneered.

"Chill out, all of you," it was Darren Klovasky who shouted reason at the boys, "Black, get Potter off the field or we will have trouble."

"Maldhorn," James started, "Monday. 7 o'clock," he finished as he turned away with Sirius to leave the pitch. Darren had turned to Andrew to check that he was all right as James and Sirius left.

"Prongs, not that I don't think that Maldhorn had that coming, but why the bloody hell did you punch him in the face?" Sirius asked when they were out of ear shot.

"He deserved it," was all James could grumble back at Sirius.

"If you say so," Sirius told him, "Just next time, let me know when you're going to try to start an unarmed fight, I might be able to be a little bit helpful."

"It wasn't planned, trust me, or I would have killed him."

"What the hell did he do?"

"Nothing. Its what he said."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing. Its just... Lily," James told him.

"Seriously? You kidding me. Lily. Really?" Sirius rolled his eyes at James, "Well, I hope she's worth it, mate.

"Pads, she is."

SIRIUS

That night, Sirius sat in the common with James and Peter. They were slightly disheveled and he noticed that all of his friends seemed distracted that night. Remus had hardly said anything since he and James returned from practice but he did say that he needed a moment to himself before joining the boys downstairs in the common room and Peter was being suspiciously fidgety. Sirius could tell that James was still angry at Maldhorn and he began to wonder exactly what Maldorn had said. However, something happened that made Sirius suddenly not care about James and Andrew anymore. Mary Lou and Julia walked into the Gryffindor common room. They were otherwise alone and Sirius shouted to them and told them to come join himself and the rest of the Marauders.

As the two girls hurried over, Mary Lou was the first to talk.

"Hello, Sirius," she sauntered over to him.

"Why, hello beautiful," he greeted her.

"So Sirius, any new developments?" she asked him as she began to rub his bicep.

Sirius looked at her, "As a matter of fact, yes" he told her. There really was no development as far as Remus and Julia were concerned, but he didn't want to tell her that.

"Really, cause I haven't heard anything," she told him as her hand moved from his arm to his lap.

"Are you sure? I think he's gonna take care of it very soon," he told her as he spread his legs ever so slightly, giving her more of his thigh to work with.

In that moment, Sirius spotted Remus coming down the stairs to the common room.

"Oi! Mooney!" Sirius shouted.

Remus took notice of his friends and made his way over, taking a seat next to James on the couch.

Sirius knew that he was going to need to be more proactive if he was going to get Remus to ask Julia to the damned formal and get Mary Lou into his bed.

"What a perfect arrangement," Sirius observed out loud. He noticed Remus throw him a look. Sirius supposed that it was possible that Remus was trying to convey to Sirius to knock it off, but Sirius decided that it was highly unlikely.

"Remus, look whose here, you can finally get your question out of the way," Sirius started.

"What?" Remus looked straight at Sirius.

"What question?" Mary Lou was playing along with Sirius.

"Remus has been struggling with it all week," Sirius made up, "say, Julia, have you given any thought about your date to the formal this winter?"

"What? No, why?" Julia responded and she looked over to Remus who had by that point turned almost completely red.

"Remus wants to ask you," Sirius plainly as that, handed it to her.

"What? Really? Remus?" she turned to him, "I'll go with you, of course."

"Perfect, its a date!" Sirius announced as he settled back into his chair._ 'How perfect,'_ he thought to himself, _'the date it set, Julia is happy, Remus didn't have to do any of the work and I'm going to be reaping the reward.'_

Okay, so that's chapter 11. Chapter 12 will be coming soon and I can't think of much else to add.

Thanks for continuing to read!


	12. Heartbeat

Okay guys. First, I want to apologize for not updating in over a month... almost two months. I wrote this chapter TWICE and I both times lost it due to not saving it and leaving my laptop uncharged until it died on me, making it very difficult to find the motivation in myself to rewrite this chapter. Then I got into a really horrible car accident, putting me in the hospital for quite some time. However, all is good now, and I'm finally ready to try and get over this slump of frustration with having to write this chapter for a third time. Thanks for reading, it makes me day to see that people are enjoying what I'm putting out.

Also, I want to thank anyone who reviewed, they seriously make me so happy to read. I'm getting this chapter up, immediately going to work on a short 1 chapter piece for a writing challenge and then I'm full steam ahead working on this piece so that there are no more gaps longer than 2 weeks at the most in between new chapters.

LILY

It was Friday evening and Lily was sitting crossed legged on her bed across from Rosie. The two girls hadn't had much alone time so far that year and Lily was deeply missing the late night chats and constant company of her best friend. Besides, Lily needed to talk to someone about her newly possible developing feelings towards James. She wasn't quite having feelings for him, but she was finding it harder and harder to hate him and she needed to get her head straight.

"Okay, Rosie, I need to talk to you about something," Lily started.

"Lily, I really need to tell you something too," Rosie confided.

"What?"

"No, you go first, I don't know how to even verbalize it yet," Rosie told her.

"Alright, but you have to swear that you wont tell anyone," Lily warned her friend.

"Of course, Lily. You know you can trust me."

"Okay," Lily inhaled deeply and prepared herself to admit the one thing she never in her life thought she'd utter out loud, "I think, that somehow, I don't quite hate James anymore."

"What?" Rosie's eyes lit up, "James? James Potter? Do you like him?"

"No," Lily answered immediately, "well, I don't know. He's different. Maybe he grew up over this summer, but he's not the same Potter that I've hated for six years."

"Well, what happened that has you changing your mind?"

"It's just that when we had our meeting to begin the organization of the winter formal, he was smart and articulate. He actually contributed ideas and he took responsibility and initiative to get stuff done."

"This is kinda exciting Lily," Rosie told her with a smile.

"What? Why?" Lily let out a little laugh, she was relieved at how well Rosie was responding to the news. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but she had been very nervous about sharing her thoughts on James.

"Because," Rosie started, "James has liked you for almost the entire time that we've been in school and I never thought you'd change your mind about him, but here you are."

"I don't know though," Lily admitted, "because what if I'm just trying to fill that hole that Andrew left? Like, what if I'm just liking James because he's the closest guy to me?"

"Oh," Rosie sat for a moment thinking, "that's possible. I mean, rebounding is normal, right? But, even if it is just a rebound feeling that your having, you should let it happen. You never know what could come out of it, and I think you need some excitement in your life, especially after everything that you've been through."

"You're right," Lily told Rosie, "I just can't believe this."

"I know, me either," Rosie laughed lightly, "do you think that James has any idea?"

"I don't think so. I just hate not knowing what it is that I'm feeling."

"Yeah, but its gonna sort itself out, just enjoy it."

"Yeah," Lily replied. She was feeling a lot better after rationalizing things with Rosie.

"Okay, so what is your news?" Lily pressed Rosie.

"Oh, man," Rosie said as she brought her hands to her face and gently rubbed her temples for a moment.

"What? Is it bad?" Lily was surprised, she hadn't been aware that anything serious was going on in Rosie's life. She then felt a twinge of guilt for not being more aware of what her best friend had been up to.

"No, not bad. Just, I don't know if I just made a huge mistake or if I just did something great for myself."

"You have to give me more detail, you're killing me." Lily told her friend.

"You also have to swear on everything you love that you won't tell anyone."

"Rosie, I swear. I just told you that I have feelings for James Potter, of course I'm not going to repeat anything you tell me."

"Okay."

Lily watched as Rosie sat across from her, giving her a moment to collect her thoughts. The two girls were sitting with their legs cross, facing each other, the tops of Lily's knees were almost touching Rosie's.

"I can't believe I'm about to say this," Rosie started, "I... Well, I... I had sex with Remus Lupin," Rosie took forever with the beginning of the sentence but then she spit out the end of it as fast as she could.

It took Lily a moment to register in her mind what her friend had just told her.

"Remus? Remus Lupin?" Lily clarified.

"Yeah," Rosie lightly responded while nodding her head, her eyes were now glued to her lap.

"Oh my God."

"I know," Rosie still didn't look up.

"Um, when?"

"Well, technically, yesterday."

"Yesterday?" Lily was shocked. At what point did Rosie find time to loose her virginity to a boy that she hardly spoke to on a Thursday afternoon?

"Are you okay with it?"

"I don't know. I don't feel anything about it. I feel like it didn't actually happen. Its so crazy."

"I can't believe you let me sit here and talk about my possibly non existent feelings for Potter while you had this information to share," Lily couldn't get over her shock.

"I just, I don't know. I wanted to do it, and I did. I don't know what he thinks, or what he feels. I don't know if he even feels anything about it at all."

"I don't think Remus is the type of guy to just sleep with a girl without feeling something," Lily reassured Rosie.

"I guess you're right."

"I just, I don't understand. I didn't know you were close with him," Lily admitted.

"I'm not really. Its just, I've always thought he was cute, but I don't know. I've never really put myself out there with a guy and I didn't really know him," Rosie started explaining the story, "but recently, he's started meeting me in the library after classes sometimes and we do homework together. Then, he kissed me and then yesterday, we just decided to have sex. We didn't discuss it or anything. Everyone was down at the Quidditch pitch and he invited me up and we did it."

"I'm so shocked," Lily couldn't organize her thoughts into sentences.

"I'm so shocked, too," Rosie responded, "I don't even know what to say to him. Or if it was a one time thing."

"I just don't understand why you'd just give your first time to him. It doesn't bother you?" Lily was most confused about that part of the story, she was deeply affected by her own waisted loss of virginity and would do anything to get it back but Rosie didn't seem to think twice about it.

"I didn't think about it. I don't really care, I guess. I feel like, everyone has done it. Literally. You've done it, Mary Lou's done it, Angelica's done it and Julia."

"That's not a reason to do it," Lily regretted the words as they came out of her mouth, she didn't want to guilt her best friend, and she didn't want to plant the seeds of remorse in Rosie's mind.

"Well, that's not the only reason," Lily could hear the defense in Rosie's tone.

"I didn't mean to be like that, I'm sorry. I think what I'm saying is more directed at myself than at you. I support everything you do and feel and you can tell me everything," Lily apologized for her momentary judgment.

"I know you regret it, and I should have been a better friend while you were with Andrew so that you had someone to talk about it first, I'm sorry too."

"What? It's not at all your fault, I could have come to you and I didn't, I'm sorry for that. I made a bad decision on my own and I just would never want you to feel this way."

"Lily, your the best, I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Well, luckily I'll always be here for you."

JAMES

James woke up alone in his private bedroom on Saturday morning feeling unusually relaxed for a Saturday morning. He didn't have anything in particular that needed to be taken care of, and Gryffindor wasn't competing in the Quidditch match, so he didn't need to rush down to the pitch. James wasn't feeling necessarily hungry though, so he decided to head to the Gryffindor dorms and see if any of the other Marauders were hanging around before they headed to the Great Hall.

Before he got to the Gryffindor dormitories, he ran into Sirius in a corridor.

"Prongs!" Sirius shouted at him.

"Hey, there you are. What are you up to?"

"Well, I was gonna just head down to the pitch. I came down to eat but I'm done now. Mooney and Wormtail are still in the dormitories, they both are acting odd."

"Really? Well, I guess I'll head down with you," James started walking with Sirius.

"They'll be down in a little, but we gotta get seats for us and for Mary Lou and her friends. I told her I'd save them seats."

"Her friends?" James pressed, "Lily, too?"

"I would imagine so," Sirius told him.

"That's great," James said, mostly to himself.

James couldn't help but take note that they were a few months into the school year and he had only really made Lily angry once. This was a solid improvement in comparison to other years.

"Should I ask her to the formal?" James wondered out loud.

"This again?" Sirius rolled his eyes at his friend, "when has asking Lily out ever gone well for you?"

"Well, this is different. We're getting along, or at least I think she doesn't hate me. Plus, we're organizing the whole thing together. Its not like its a completely random thing to ask."

"I don't know, mate," Sirius told him, "if things are going better, then maybe you shouldn't try to wreck them so quickly by pushing things."

"Maybe," James muttered, "but Remus is going with Julia, and you could easily get Mary Lou as a date and then we could even match up Peter with one of the girls. All of us would have dates taken care of, and I would be with Lily. Plus, it could be an incentive for her to go with me if all her friends have dates."

"So you'd be okay with Lily going with you even though she would only be there as a last resort to not look like a loser with no date when the rest of her friends have one?"

"Well, that's not the ideal scenario, but even if it happens that way, I'd still be taking Lily Evans as my date."

REMUS

By the time that Remus and Peter made their way to the stands to watch the game, both James and Sirius had already found seats. Of course, the seats were with the only other group of seventh year Gryffindors; which included Rosie and her small group of friends. Remus hadn't spoken to Rosie since they decide on a whim to sleep together. He wasn't sure what to say to her, he was really beginning to like her and he wanted her to know, but now he was supposed to escort Julia, one of Rosie's oldest friends, to the formal.

Remus felt his stomach drop when he found himself wondering if Rosie already knew that Remus has 'asked' Julia to be his date. Remus didn't spend a lot of time discussing his personal life with anyone. Its not that he hid things from his friends, but he just didn't enjoy making his life the center of attention. Unfortunately, his lack of vocalization for himself had led to his friends not being aware of his situation with Rosie. He still hadn't mentioned anything to the rest of the Marauders. He figured that, as of that moment, the less people that knew all the details, the better.

He needed Rosie to know that it wasn't his idea to ask Julia to be his date, and he didn't actually do any of the asking. Unfortunately, there was a chance that it would be mentioned today during the match and he wouldn't have the opportunity to tell Rosie first. He momentarily debated telling Julia that it wasn't, in fact, him who wanted to take her to the formal and that he was involved with someone else. However, there were two problems with that. The first was that he wouldn't want to hurt her feelings like that, even though Remus was somewhat positive that Julia knew that he was being forced to ask. The second was that he wasn't sure if he was actually involved with someone else. He wasn't sure if Rosie even wanted to continue things with him or if the other day had meant anything to her. Somehow his rather simple and self containing existence had been completely turned upside down in the matter of a few days.

"Finally," James greeted Remus and Peter as the took their seats in the row in front of James and Sirius.

"Well, its great to see you too," Remus greeted back.

Peter was sitting on Remus' right side, on his left side was Angelica. Angelica was another Gryffindor that, while he has known her for more than 6 years, he didn't know very well outside of her identity as being part of Lily's group of friends. Mary Lou and Julia were on the other side of Angelica and in the row behind them was Lily and Rosie. He and Peter gave the girls a quick hello, but then he immediately looked to Rosie. She smiled back at him, he felt a wave of relief rush over his body, either she didn't know yet that he was taking Julia as his date, or she didn't mind. Remus noticed how pretty her smile was. Everything about Rosie was cute to him. Her super smooth slightly tanned Asian skin and her little dimples that only came out when she smiled wide and showed her perfect, white teeth. Remus had always thought she was one of the prettiest girls in their year and he wondered if there had been many other guys in her life. He was so caught up in his thoughts about Rosie's dimples that he hardly heard Julia give him an individual greeting.

"I'm loving this Fall weather," Lily was the one to start the conversation, when Remus looked back to see her, he was surprised to realize that she was sitting next to James.

"I'm hating this cold weather. I can't wait for the sun to come back," Mary Lou disagreed.

"I love the fall, but I'm dreading the winter because it gets way too cold," Rosie added.

"

"I think you all are deeply over thinking the weather," Sirius interrupted.

"What you don't have a preference?" Mary Lou turned to Sirius.

"Not really. Weather happens and then it changes and then it goes back to how it started. I don't pick favorites."

"Well, pretty much everyone else does," Mary Lou told him.

"Yeah, Fall is nice, but its too short. Its gonna be freezing in a couple weeks," James added.

"Which means that we're going to be frozen during the Hogsmeade trip in two weekends," Angelica brought up.

"Oh yes, we have to go pick out dresses, that's going to be so much fun," Julia chimed in too.

"Are you and Remus going to coordinate colors?" Angelica turned to Julia.

There it was. Before the game even started. Remus' stomach dropped. He quickly turned to Rosie to assess her facial expression. She looked frozen. Her face was faintly smiling along with the conversation, but he could tell there were wheels turning quickly in her mind.

"What?" Lily interjected, "why would they be coordinating?"

"Oh, you don't know," Mary Lou responded.

"Remus asked me to go to the formal with him," Julia informed Lily.

"You would know if you and Rosie decided to hang out with us on Friday night," Angelica reminded Lily.

Lily opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She smiled at Julia, "Well, that's just... great," Lily finally pushed out.

Remus looked at Lily as she looked right into his eyes. Lily undoubtedly knew that he had slept with Rosie. He felt horrible. Remus looked at Rosie. She still hadn't said anything, she was now looking at her hands in her lap, with the same tiny fake smile frozen on her face.

So that was a lot of Remus and Rosie, next chapter is heavily Lily and James and finally Angelica will be of some use to the story.

I realized that I never included a character description of Rosie because she was the narrator in the second chapter when the girls were initially described, but this is the way that I've always had the character look in my mind, I'm sorry if if doesn't match what you had created in your mind and if it bothers you, then feel free to pretend that you didn't read her physical description and continue imagining her the way that you want.

Also, I didn't really edit this that closely so if there is a glaring error that is bother you, I apologize and as always, let me know and I'll fix it.

XX


	13. You Could Be My Girl

King

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, blah blah blah.

CHAPTER 13

JAMES

James was let down when Lily left the Quidditch match early. He had been so excited that she had chosen on her own to come sit next to him. Of course her whole group of friends had chosen to sit with his, but she didn't have to pick the seat directly next to him. Unfortunately, James didn't get to say much to Lily before she excused herself about ten minutes into the game. Rosie had left only moments before her, claiming that she felt ill and then Lily left almost immediately after.

Ravenclaw won the match, much to James' dismay, and he figured it was probably better that Lily wasn't there to see Andrew celebrate with his team. He wasn't sure exactly how Lily felt about Andrew anymore, but it was clear to the rest of the student body that Andrew had moved on. James couldn't help but notice the girl hanging all over Andrew at every meal and between every class. He recognized her as a seventh year Slytherin named Adrienne, she was the same girl that he noticed Andrew snogging on the field after the last Ravenclaw-Gyffindor match. The only positive aspect of Andrew being so openly over his relationship with Lily, was the fact that Lily wouldn't be tempted into getting back together with Andrew. Which left her completely open as far as James was concerned.

At the end of the game, James and the rest of the Marauders along with the remainder of Lily's friends that were left at the game, all headed back to the Gryffindor common room together.

"I think we're going to need to watch out for Ravenclaw this year, they've won almost all their games," Sirius begrudgingly noted as they walked back to the castle.

"Yeah, well," James tried to think of something smart to point out, but he couldn't, "they still suck."

"You don't have to hate the Ravenclaw team so much anymore, James," Mary Lou pointed out to him, Lily and Andrew aren't together anymore."

"Firstly, I can hate who I want," James defending himself, "and secondly, Andrew is an ass no matter who he is dating."

"I can concur with that," Angelica added.

"Well, all I'm saying is maybe we should add some extra practice time in during the week," Sirius reminded James.

"I think that's a good idea," added Remus, "I mean, if your already on the field, why not just stay out a little longer."

"Mooney, Pads," James addressed his best friends, "what the hell happened to your house loyalty? Stop being so scared of Ravenclaw, we're a great team."

"I'm not scared of Ravenclaw," Sirius defended himself.

"Me either, I'm just saying, a little extra practice can't hurt," Remus reminded James.

"Fine," James mumbled, feeling a little defeated, "I'll extend practice a little later, but only because I like practice, not because I'm scared."

"Okay boys, we get it," Angelica said, "no one is scared of Ravenclaw."

When the group finally made it back to the common room, they immediately spread themselves out along the couch and arms chairs facing the fire but Peter quietly excused himself and mumbled an excuse about needing to pick something up in the library before quickly disappearing.

"I think someone should go out and let Lily and Rosie know we're back from the game," Julia pointed out as she snuggled into the corner of the couch, next to where Remus was sitting.

Briefly, James wondered if Remus and Julia were going to become a couple but then his mind went back to Lily.

"Well, I'd go get her, but certain precautions have been taken that make that impossible," James referenced the charm placed on the steps that led up to the girl's dormitories that prevented him from being able to go up.

"I'll grab them, hopefully Rosie is feeling better," Angelica stood up from the oversized arm chair that she was sharing with Mary Lou and made her way up the stairs.

Sirius immediately moved from his spot on the couch to the empty space next to Mary Lou. James wasn't listening to their conversation and suddenly felt very left out when he looked at Remus and Julia paired together on the couch and Sirius and Mary Lou paired together in their chair. He let his mind wonder about when Lily was coming down.

His eyes immediately darted up to the top of the stairs when he heard a door open and then close. Lily was finally coming down with Angelica and Rosie was following behind.

"Are you feeling better?" Remus asked Rosie the moment the girls were within speaking distance to the group.

"I'm fine," Rosie muttered, but James noticed that she was looking at the floor.

James never understood why girls got so embarrassed by illness, it happens to everyone.

"Well, you didn't miss anything at the game," Sirius informed the girls.

"Who won?" Lily asked.

"Ravenclaw," James rolled his eyes slightly when he responded, he was sick of hearing about Ravenclaw.

"Oh," was all Lily mumbled back.

"I think Sirius and I are gonna go for a walk," Mary Lou interjected.

"Yeah, we'll be back later," Sirius announced as he and Mary Lou stood from their chair.

It was obvious to James, and probably everyone else in the room, that the pair was looking for somewhere to shag. Especially considering that Remus had finally asked Julia to the Winter Formal.

"Feel free to steal the chair," Mary Lou said to Lily and Rosie as she walked past them, leading Sirius out of the common room.

James watched Lily and Rosie bundle together to fit into the arm chair across from James, Angelica had taken the empty seat next to Remus and James found himself wishing that Lily was with him, in his own chair.

"So, have you thought much about the formal?" James asked Lily. It seemed to him that the only topic that he could safely discuss with her was their planning of the formal.

"Honestly?" Lily started, "Not really. We need to make an announcement soon asking everyone to vote about the music."

"We're voting?" Julia asked.

"Yeah, we wanted to get a live band and we were thinking that we would try for whichever one the student body votes for," James explained.

"That's a cool idea," Angelica added.

"Yeah, but the formal is coming sooner than I expected. We only have five more weeks left to plan," Lily pointed out.

"It'll be fine," James reassured her, "plus with all the help from the prefects, it'll be done so easily. We can have them collect and count the votes from each of their houses and then report it back to us."

"Yeah, but you've still got to meet with the other Quidditch captains to get them to agree to agree to the games beforehand.

"Wow, you guys are really planning this," Angelica commented.

"Well that's our job," James reminded her.

"I just want to go dress shopping," Julia added.

"That's gonna be so much fun, I can't wait to go to all the dress shops in Hogsmeade," Angelica perked up.

"Yeah, that'll be pretty fun. Hogsmeade weekend is when? Two weeks from now?" Lily asked.

"Yep, not this weekend but the next one," James told her.

It took every ounce of control in James' body to not ask her on a date to Hogsmeade. He was so happy to be having such a positive conversation with Lily that he didn't want to ruin it, but James desperately wanted to test the water and at least ask her to grab a drink with him while they were there.

"Rosie, didn't you say you wanted me to show you that book for class in the library?" James was confused by Remus' sudden conversation about books.

"The what?" Rosie's voice was a little scratchy.

"That book, with those notes in it. In the library." Remus repeated.

"What book?" Julia sat up a little straighter trying to get into Remus' line of vision as he turned to Rosie.

"Oh, the book," Rosie replied.

James was a little confused by the conversation but he was excited by the prospect of Remus and Rosie leaving because that would mean it would just be him and Lily in the common room with only two of her friends.

"Do you want to get it before we forget again?" Remus asked her.

"I can get it," Lily interjected and James felt his heart sink a little, "Rosie doesn't feel great right now, so I'll go get it for her.

"Oh," Remus said, "are you sure?"

"I think I can get it," Rosie spoke up and James was relieved that Lily would be staying.

"Right now?" Julia asked.

"Yeah, it'll take only a minute," Remus told her.

"Oh," was all that Julia had to say in response.

"So, let's go?" Remus asked as he stood up.

"Are you sure?" Lily turned to Rosie.

James was starting to hate that Lily was such a loyal friend, it was just a quick flu at the most, the girl could handle walking to the library.

"Yeah," Rosie said while standing, "let's go."

"I guess I'm going to go up and get some homework done," Julia said.

"I'll come with you," Angelica added.

"We should head back to our common room then," Lily said to James.

"Yes, let's do that," James was elated to have the walk back to the Head's common room with Lily.

When Lily and James made it outside of the common room, she started asking him questions.

"So, Remus and Julia then?" Lily asked.

"Um, yeah," he responded, he wasn't sure if Lily knew about Mary Lou pressuring Sirius to make Remus ask Julia to the formal but he figured that Lily probably wouldn't like it if she knew and he didn't want to be the one to tell her.

"I didn't see that coming," Lily added.

"Me either," James figured it was best to play stupid.

"I didn't even think they hung out that much," Lily kept pressing.

"Yeah, Remus is a quiet guy though, its tough to know what's always going on in his mind," James told her.

"Yeah, I guess so," Lily agreed, "But isn't it strange that he would ask her so far in advanced? Most people won't start asking for dates for another week or so."

"Well, maybe he just didn't want to chance anyone else asking her."

"Oh," Lily didn't seem to like James' answer.

"I mean, somebody had to be the first person to ask for a date."

"Yeah, I know."

"So, I take it that you haven't been asked yet."

"Well no, seeing as Julia was the first one to be asked," Lily reminded him.

"But do you think you're going to be asked?" James asked her.

"Excuse me?" Lily responded sounding a little offended.

"I didn't mean that in bad way," James realized that he might have sounded a little rude, "I meant, is there someone in particular that you think is going to ask?"

"Well, no," Lily admitted, "I don't think so."

"Okay," James was relatively happy with that answer.

He wondered if it was an appropriate time to ask her as his date, but he was still scared that he might ruin the friendship that he was finally forming with Lily after years of trying.

"So Remus didn't tell you that he was going to ask Julia before he did it?" Lily asked.

"Are you upset that he asked her?" James questioned, he was starting to fear that maybe Lily had feelings for Remus.

"No, not at all," Lily immediately said, "its just that Julia has never really mentioned being close to Remus at all and so I'm just surprised."

"Okay," James wasn't sure if he was completely convinced.

"I swear, I'm not upset or jealous or anything like that," Lily continued.

"Its okay, I won't tell anyone," James decided to test out teasing Lily.

"There's nothing to tell, I swear," Lily's eyes were wide.

"Well, prove it," James stopped walking and turned to Lily.

"Prove it?" Lily's face was covered in shock and James couldn't help but admire her.

"Yeah, if you really don't have feelings for Remus, which I'm not completely convinced of, then you should have no problem proving it."

"Proving it?" Lily looked like she was at a loss for words, "How on Earth would I prove that?"

"Well, if it was true, then I don't think you would have such a hard time thinking of something," James was enjoying that he could tease Lily without her getting overtly mad at him for being childish.

"Well I'm telling you that I don't have any feelings for Remus besides those of friendship," Lily told him.

"I don't think that's good enough," James put his hands in his pocket and shrugged.

"Well then I don't know what to do," Lily said.

In all honesty, James didn't know exactly what he was expecting Lily to do, but he was having fun teasing her.

"Show me," James told her.

"Show you?" Lily questioned, she looked away from James, and then looked back and cocked her head ever so slightly.

"Fine," Lily said to him.

"Fine?" James was now the one asking questions.

In a matter of seconds, James felt Lily's soft, plump lips on his. He was stunned. James didn't think he'd ever be able to move from the spot, but the kiss was over as quickly as it began.

"Well," James said quietly, "you sure showed me."

"Don't get too excited," Lily told him, "I'm just proving that I don't like Remus in that way."

"By kissing me?" James questioned as the pair started to walk again.

"Well, if I liked Remus, I wouldn't want to ruin my chance with him by kissing one of his best friends, now would I?"

"Well, I'm satisfied with that," James told her with a huge grin across his face.

"I said not to let that go to your head," Lily reminded him.

"Eh, too late," James laughed.

He couldn't stop replaying the kiss in his head. It was over in a matter of seconds and it was just a light peck on the lips, but it was the most intimate he'd ever gotten with the girl he wanted the most and he could have died happily at that moment.

"You have that meeting this week with the Quidditch captains about the games before the formal, right?" Lily asked, snapping James back into reality.

"Yeah, hopefully it'll be short and easy," James told her.

He was not looking forward to the meeting because he was already anticipating at least two of the captains being extremely difficult to work with.

"Yeah, if that works out, I'll be happy that at least we'll have one part of the event finalized."

"Well, I'll get that done this week and then at the next prefects meeting we'll give them instructions about voting and hopefully that'll be done by the end of next week."

"Good, I'll be so happy when everything is finalize and done," Lily sighed as the pair crossed through the portrait hole that led to their common room.

"So, what are you up to for the rest of the afternoon?" James asked her.

"Well, I have an essay to write for Monday, but I'm actually tired so I think I'm going to nap first and then get it done," Lily told him.

"Oh, good plan," James commented, he wished that she wasn't planning on sleeping because he didn't want their conversation to end.

"Yeah, I guess I'll see you later then. Maybe at dinner?" Lily said to him as she walked to her room.

"Um, yeah, I'm sure I'll see you down there."

"Alright, sounds good."

ROSIE

Rosie was surprised when Remus had made up a story to get her alone with him. She knew as well as he did that there was no book that he was supposed to show her in the library but she figured he was going to try to explain why he asked Julia to the formal. As she followed Remus out the common room she wondered if they were really going to head all the way down to the library or if he was just going to find an abandoned corridor for them to talk in.

"Look, I'm sorry," Remus said the moment that the portrait closed behind them.

"Why? You can do what you want," Rosie told him while looking at the floor.

"No, I didn't want to," Remus explained and she looked up at him immediately.

"Didn't want to sleep with me?" Rosie's stomach hurt for a moment.

"No," Remus' eyes were wide, "I don't want to go to the formal with Julia."

"What?" Rosie was confused, "Then why would you ask her?"

"Its a long, stupid story," Remus told her.

"Well, so what then?" Rosie asked.

She still had no idea how he felt about her or what their relationship to each other was and she hated the uncertainty.

"I don't know exactly what to do yet," it was now Remus' turn to look at the ground.

"Then why did you ask me to come out here?" Rosie was not in the mood for anymore bad news.

"I just," Remus started, "I just wanted you to know."

"Know what? You wont tell me why you asked her. All you've said is that you didn't want to but you did anyways," Rosie responded.

"I want to tell you, but I don't know if I can," Remus kept his voice low.

"I'm not going to repeat it, if that is what you're worried about."

"Alright," Remus said as he looked around, "come with me."

"Where are we going?" she asked as he led her down a corridor, like she had expected he might.

"Just somewhere we wont be over heard," he stopped when they found themselves in an old stairwell that was almost never used.

"Okay," Remus took a deep breath in, "Sirius asked me to ask Julia to the formal."

"Um, what?" Rosie was even more confused than she originally had been.

"I don't really know why, but Mary Lou got Sirius to make me do it," Remus said while he shook his head, Rosie could tell he felt stupid.

"Um, I don't understand," Rosie said.

"I don't know if Julia knows that its not my decision to ask her," Remus admitted, "and I didn't really ask her, Sirius put me on the spot and threw it out there in front of her."

"Oh," Rosie couldn't think of much else to say.

"He didn't know that we, well, you know," Remus added.

"Yeah, I figured."

"Its just," Remus started to speak but then he stopped.

"What?" Rosie asked.

"I do like you," Remus looked her in the eyes.

"Oh," Rosie was surprised, she wasn't expecting that.

"Yeah," Remus put his hands in his pockets and Rosie realized he was probably waiting for her to share her feelings.

"I like you too," Rosie whispered, she wasn't used to being to vocal about her feelings.

"Yeah?" he smiled at her.

"Yeah," she said smiling back.

Then she felt his lips on hers, she opened her own lips every so slightly to let him in. He put his hands around her waist and she snaked hers around the back of his neck.

"Is this okay?" he asked her.

"Yeah."

Rosie forgot about Julia and the nonsense about the formal, and the ache in her stomach disappeared as she kept kissing him in the dimly lit stairwell.

Okay, I am so glad I finally got a chapter up. I've already written the next chapter and so I'm going to start publishing every Tuesday (or Wednesday if something comes up). I'm currently without internet so I have to run to the nearest coffee shop to upload chapters but that should only be the case for the next two weeks.

The story is probably around halfway through, maybe just under. I think there will be a total of 25 chapters or so, in case anyone was wondering.

I hope you guys liked it thanks anyone who reviewed it seriously makes me so happy.

XX


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